Digimon Morphers
by Ikaru Kakou
Summary: Chapter Fourteen: Karma decides to have some fun with Kyle while Wayne gets to the Champion level.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: ** Hi all. You may know me for my other multi-chaptered fanfic "Magma of Cinnabar" (Incomplete, first few chaps going to be rewritten anyway), or my oneshot, "New Years Gone Awry" (Complete, probably going to be rewritten eventually), both of which are pokemon. This fanfic though, is Digimon. And I think I'll have more fun with this one. Especially since I get to write about fire more often, even though MoC stars a fire pokemon. But anyways, here comes: **Digimon Morphers**

**Disclaimer:** I do not own pokemon, some random Japanese guy does.

-Digivice beeps with text message-

Oops, I meant Digimon. Same second part of the sentence though.

**Chapter One: "What are you, a cell phone virus?"**

Wayne sighed. This was the third time _this period_ his cell phone had vibrated with another text from some unknown number. And always the same person. This was getting annoying. Each text said something about "It comes. Be prepared." And each message always said to call the number ASAP. As if. Maybe he'd call it when he got bored after watching "Digimon" when he got home. It could be interesting to listen to some lunatic ranting about the apocalypse.

But as it was, he was stuck in history class with the evil Mr. Roddy. Mr. Roddy, who seemed to have a sixth sense about gum-chewers, texters, and even the ASL chatters. The moment he had received the text, he had made sure the pocket the phone was in wasn't touching the metal on the desk, and he waited until Mr. Roddy turned to write something on the bored before checking it again. Luckily, as he shoved the phone back in his pocket, Mr. Roddy caught Melissa G and Melissa S having yet another conversation in ASL from across the room. Thank God for preppy ASL students who liked to sign to each other about their latest dates during history.

After struggling not to fall asleep as he took notes through the rest of history (and got even more annoyed by at least five more text messages from the number), Wayne got up and stretched before making his way to his last class of the day: Drama. Which meant he had to turn off his cell phone. The Drama teacher was nice about everything except for the usual rules for being in a theatre. Which included cell phones being off. Somehow she had managed to find out exactly who had a cell phone in the class, and asked them to show her their phone was off the moment they walked in the door.

So just as Wayne walked up to the door and began to turn his phone off for Mrs. Dean, he was greatly annoyed by yet another text message. "Hold on." He said as he walked out he door to check the text. Yep, same message. He growled as he turned off the phone and shoved it into his pocket before entering the theatre again.

"What is so important you would risk being late?" Mrs. Dean asked him as he walked in.

"Checking to be sure it was the same annoying text I've been getting all day and not something more important." Wayne replied bitterly. Lucky him, this actually helped him in this class. The scenes they were working on had him playing a character that seemed to be eternally pissed off.

After Drama, Wayne left the theatre and began to walk home, again checking for new text messages. Fifteen more from the number. He cursed as he continued to walk. Half an hour later, he arrived home and, after five more messages, wrote down the number and blocked further text messages from it. Sighing, he collapsed onto the couch and turned on the TV. As expected, Digimon was on. He smiled and began to relax.

About halfway through the episode, the cable went out. Every channel. A little strange, but not entirely devastating. After all, there was still that number to investigate. Grabbing his cell phone from the table, he got up and dialed the number he had written down.

He was greeted by the screech of dial-up. He winced and tore the phone away from his ear, putting it on speakerphone as he put it down on the table again. Staring at the phone as it continued to give off that dial up screech, he grew angry. Until suddenly the dial up sound stopped, and there was the usual sound of someone hanging up on you.

"What the heck?! How does dial-up hang up on you?!" He shouted angrily as he picked up the phone and turned it off of speakerphone. As he did so, he noticed something new on the screen. A circle with a triangle on the outside. It was in the upper-right corner of the screen, and when he closed the phone it appeared on the outer screen as well. Weird. He put his phone in his pocket and went upstairs.

As he walked over to his brother's room to grab his DS (His older brother had a habit of stealing his DS), he felt something in his pocket pulling him towards his room. Abnormal, to say the least, considering the only thing in his pocket was his phone. He grabbed his DS and went into his room to play the DS. He took his phone out of his pocket and put it on the bed. And momentarily did a double take. The triangle was pointing in a different direction. It now pointed towards his computer. Curious, he walked to the computer and held the phone out. The triangle was now spinning around the circle in, well, a circle. He turned the computer on, and a bolt of electricity sparked from the USB Port to his phone. The triangle circle disappeared. In its place, was something very strange.

"What the fuck?! That looks like an anthro orange lion! And it's on fire!" He exclaimed, only to have the thing yell right back at him.

"I am not an anthro lion! I'm a digimon!" It yelled. Wayne stared. He must be going crazy. Dial-up hanging up on him. Weird things showing up on his phone, including what was apparently a digimon. Yup, definitely schizo. He'd have to go see a psychiatrist on that one. Still, he had to at least attempt to assert sanity on this situation.

"No, seriously, what are you, a cell phone virus?" He asked it. He got a glare in return.

"For your information, I'm a Vaccine Digimon named Coronamon!" The digimon shouted, obviously offended at the virus comment. Wayne made a note to remember that most virus digimon were evil, and therefore a good digimon, especially a vaccine one, would be offended by the term.

"Right…. And why are you here?" He asked, still not quite believing what was obviously true, given that he wasn't insane, anyway.

"Hmm… let's see, I'm in your cell phone, I'm here in the real world in the first place…. Is it perhaps that you're a Digidestined and I'm supposed to be your partner?" Coronamon muttered sarcastically. "Gosh, you humans are so stupid sometimes."

"Well excuse me if a digimon suddenly appears on my cell phone after I've spent years watching the TV show after school everyday, and I just can't believe it." Wayne replied, glaring at the digimon. If they were going to be partners, then obviously someone made a screw up in the pairing room. "But, uh… How are you supposed to get out of my cell phone?"

"Simple. It's called Digifusion. Recent development, similar to Biomerging. Only it's the human body that remains instead of the digimon body. And the only known side effect is that the human can use digimon abilities. Extensive testing has yet to be done, obviously, because humans are hard to come by in the Digital World. But it's relatively safe." Coronamon responded with a look on his face that suggested he was saying it from memory, not actual knowledge.

"And has anyone actually Digifused yet?" Wayne asked hesitantly.

"Nope. We're the first." Coronamon said before suddenly disappearing from the cell phone screen. A shot of electricity flew from the phone and into Wayne, and Coronamon's voice could be heard shouting "DIGIFUSE!"

Wayne collapsed on his bed wondering in the back of his mind if maybe not throwing the phone away after the dial up hung up on him was such a good idea before he faded into unconsciousness.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Hey! I'm back with more! Coronamon makes himself a hiding place and in the process gets so exhausted that just digifusing with him again makes Wayne so tired he falls asleep. Then again, that could just be standard Digifusion side effect. You, the reader, don't know, do you? I'm sure you don't, I haven't even decided on that yet. Also, don't expect daily updates that often. I was just in a writing mood yesterday, apparently. This was done last night but I wanted it beta'd for a certain part.

**Disclaimer: **How the hell would I own Digimon? Are you on crack?

Chapter Two: Side Effects 

Wayne woke up wondering what the hell had happened. There was a warm feeling all over his body. At first, he failed to remember anything after the cable went out. And then he heard a voice.

"Now, how the heck do we undo this…?" That's right, Coronamon and all that crap. And he was Digifused with Coronamon, hence the warm feeling.

"Wait a minute, you said I could use your abilities when we're Digifused. I wanna try that out." He said, looking around his room for a possible target.

"Got anything non-flammable?" Coronamon asked, apparently using Wayne's own mouth.

Wayne looked around the room. Bed, wooden desk, wooden desk chair, wooden dresser bookcase with books, mirror. "Nope, not in here. Surely you have an attack that doesn't use fire."

"You wish." Coronamon replied. Wayne felt his head being turned to look at the clock. They had only been unconscious for a few minutes. "Good, no one home yet. That means we have time to get me out of you and hidden. I am _not_ in the mood to be stuck in a human body all day and all night."

"Well…. How about… DeDigifuse?" Wayne said curiously. His eyes rolled, evidently Coronamon's doing.

"Did you honestly think you could do that without concentrating? Let me try it. DeDigifuse!" Coronamon shouted. Suddenly Wayne felt cold, and there was a Coronamon standing next to the desk. The tail flame was dangerously close to the wood.

"Can you turn the fire off? I don't want any fires to start." Wayne asked.

"Only if you want me to become a shivering mess for the next ten hours." Coronamon replied spitefully as his tail twitched. The digimon walked out the door and proceeded to start downstairs before he stopped. Wayne walked out of his bedroom to see what was going on. He found Coronamon staring at the wood floor downstairs. "That's troublesome."

"Just don't drag your tail on the floor and watch out for wooden furniture." Wayne said, "If you burn anything Mom is gonna kill me."

"Easy for you to say, you don't have a flaming tail or a forehead or wrists that can catch fire if you say the wrong words. Nor can you make fire clones of yourself." Coronamon muttered as he slowly made his way to the wooden floor. He grabbed his own tail with his left hand and held it close to himself, obviously attempting to keep it away from anything and everything else in the room. The fire didn't seem to harm him. As Wayne led the way to the backyard, Coronamon followed carefully. There was no way in hell he was going to set anything on fire, he'd gotten in enough trouble for that in the digital world. Then again, things are harder to set fire to in the digital world than in the real world. Flame-resistant data and such.

When they went outside, Coronamon had been ready to relax until he noticed the wide variety of plants. "You've gotta be kidding me. What the hell are all these plants doing in the middle of a city?!" He exclaimed.

"It's a backyard, the house is worth more if the backyard looks good, and the backyard looks good if there's plants. And the plants' health is demonstrative of how caring the owner of the house is. If I was looking for a house to buy, I wouldn't buy a house that had a backyard full of dried out weeds and dead potted plants." Wayne said as he looked around the yard. He spotted what he was looking for in the corner near the fence. A pile of rocks with a small cave-like space. "You can dig a tunnel in the cave over there. I'm sure a digimon like yourself could figure out a way to dig such a thing pretty quickly."

Coronamon looked at the cave. It was just big enough to fit a human standing up in and about five Coronamon digging one big hole. He grinned as he walked over to it and a plan came to him. "You're lucky I can make fire clones or I'd be showing myself to your family and sleeping on the kitchen floor."

"Or we could Digifuse again." Wayne suggested.

"I already told you I'm _not _going to do that." Coronamon replied. "Petite Prominence!" He added as four clones of himself shot out from the tail flame, the bracelets he wore, and his forehead stone. They were all made of fire, granted, but they were clones nonetheless. All five Coronamons stood in a circle inside the cave and a chorus of "CoroKnuckle!" was shouted. Five flaming fists punched the ground and hurled away fistfuls of dirt. Wayne was simply surprised the clones could even hold the dirt, but obviously digital fire had different laws of nature to follow than normal fire.

Within minutes, the Coronamon had dug or melted through the ground to the point where Wayne couldn't see them anymore. He rolled his eyes and started heading back inside. "Lucky Coronamon and his Petit Prominence." He muttered under his breath. Suddenly his body was engulfed in flames for a few seconds before the flames took a shape exactly like his next to him. He stared at his fire clone. He knew he could use Coronamon's abilities when they were Digifused, but when they weren't?! That was amazing. He waved his hand at the clone as if to dismiss it, and, astonishingly, it dissipated into nothingness. Useful. He made note of that for future reference and went inside to find the TV was back on, as was the cable. He sat down to watch junk TV for a while and attempted to forget about the fact that his cell phone was apparently a Digivice, he could set fire to things without the use of matches or lighters, and he had a flaming lion digging a tunnel in his backyard.

About an hour later, Wayne went back outside to find an exhausted-looking Coronamon still in the tunnel, now shouting "Corona Flame!" and shooting fireballs from his forehead at the walls in an attempt to polish them. It was basically a small hole big enough for Coronamon to pace around in with a small indent in the corner, presumably for sleeping in. "Hey, we've only got a few more minutes before Mom gets home. We need to cover up your little tunnel here so she doesn't see it."

"Already solved that problem." Coronamon stated, gesturing to the side of the cave. A sheet of rock was leaning against the wall.

"Where'd you get that?!"

"Melted some dirt on the floor and then dug it out." The digimon gasped before getting out of his tunnel and dragging the sheet of rock over to cover the hole. If you kicked some dirt over it, you wouldn't be able to tell the tunnel was there. If you melted some dirt onto it, you wouldn't need to kick the dirt onto it.

Wayne picked up the sheet of rock and struggled to lean it against the wall again. He crawled into the tunnel and wondered how the heck Coronamon was able to even get this much done. The walls were even polished smooth. But so was the floor. It was basically a stone room. Definitely not something Wayne felt comfortable letting Coronamon sleep in.

"You are not sleeping in here tonight." Wayne said before adding "Digifuse." Coronamon disappeared in a burst of data that went flying into Wayne. He felt warm again, but not as warm as before. And he felt utterly wiped out. How Coronamon had managed to stay awake after all that was beyond him. Obviously Coronamon had found a way to fall asleep while Digifused though. Speaking of sleep, Wayne felt like a nap right now himself. He went inside and wrote a quick note along the lines of not getting much sleep the previous night and went up to his room before falling asleep. The last thing he heard before his dreams claimed him was his mom entering the front door.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **Yay, more chapter. A note: Leormon / Leomon. Leormon looks like Teenage Simba from Lion King, only bigger claws and muscles and a collar with a green gem-type-thingie. ALSO: Read the disclaimer, it provides hints to certain things later in this chapter. AND: Nande kuso is Japanese for "What the fuck/shit/hell"

**Disclaimer: **Owning Digimon is like using solid gold toilets. Only rich people get to do it. And I sure as hell ain't rich. Other things that are like using gold toilets: owning Dungeons and Dragons, Fox News, Google, Wikipedia, GaiaOnline (I really wish I did own that one though), or cheatcc(dot)com. ((The "(dot)" means "."))

**Chapter Three: **_**Nande Kuso?!**_

Wayne was pretty sure that he didn't normally wake up while sleep walking with his eyes open. He was also pretty sure that he didn't do math homework if he did sleepwalk. Yet somehow he woke up to see his hand writing down work on a math problem. And his eyes had definitely been open before he woke up. "I'm assuming you're up then, Coronamon?" He asked, well aware that the door was closed to his room.

"Yup." Coronamon replied, finishing up the last math problem for Wayne. "But you need to get me back into the cave before you leave for school, I am not sitting through that with you."

Wayne sighed and gathered his homework (Which Coronamon had done for him), and put it in his backpack. He walked downstairs and grabbed a bagel for breakfast before going outside. After looking around quickly to make sure no one was looking, he muttered "DeDigifuse." Coronamon seemed to fall out of him and made his way over to the cave.

"Seeya." Coronamon said before disappearing into the tunnel, most likely to make it bigger, more elaborate, and more comfortable. Wayne sighed and went off to school.

After his first few classes, Wayne had lunch. As usual, he gathered with his three best friends: Felicia, Kikinakasoki AKA Kyle, and Jeff. Unusual though, was the fact that none of them had seen yesterday's digimon episode all the way through. In fact, they all seemed to have seen it right up until the point where Wayne's cable had gone out on him. The discussed what they had seen, of course, but they all seemed to have something on their minds. Wayne did too, but he doubted that they had digimon partners digging tunnels in their backyards. He shrugged it off until suddenly he received a text message. So did everyone else. Wayne glanced at his phone to see that yet again it was from that weird number that had given him a dial-up noise before hanging up on him. He read it and gulped audibly. His gulp went unnoticed among the three other gulps that happened at more or less the same time.

All four text messages had been from the same number, and all four of them said the same thing: "Be ready with your partner during your last class."

So Wayne ended up sitting in Drama with his phone on vibrate and Coronamon Digifused into him. Apparently Felicia had a Labramon, Kyle had a Leormon, and Jeff had a Gaomon. So they had all said "Digifuse", well aware that if they all had digimon and they all got the same message then it was no coincidence. Which meant that in four different classrooms across the campus, at exactly 2:00PM, Pacific Standard Time, computers turned on and showed static screens. At the same time, lights and other electronics all through the school went out. And each of the Digidestined put a hand to their cell phones (which they had deduced were now digivices) to find them vibrating violently, not with a text message, but with an extreme surge of power from somewhere. Wayne and his friends' reactions were as follows:

Wayne stared at his phone as it began to glow white. When a white circle began glowing around him, he didn't quite know what to do. He tried to get out of the circle, and then strangely enough, binary started appearing in mid-air like a wall around the circle. He attempted to go through the binary, only to suddenly black out. He later woke up in the middle of a white room with Coronamon standing next to him, and somehow he now knew random words and phrases in Japanese.

Felicia happened to be in the Broadcasting classroom when everything went out. A brief glance at her purse revealed that her phone (which was sticking out of it) was glowing white. She went to pick it up and found that as soon as she did so she was trapped in a glowing white circle. The thought that all the cameras weren't working made her giggle slightly as someone shouted "GET A CAMERA OVER HERE!" Sure, she was worried about what was going on. But kids running around bumping into each other and trying to find a camera that worked while she just stood there was too funny, especially when the binary appeared. She laughed a bit more as she said "You won't find one." Before there was a sudden flash of white light and she found herself lying on the floor of a room covered in wallpaper proclaiming the words "Fox News, fair and balanced", Labramon looking at her with concern.

Kyle's experience was by far the funniest. And yet it was also the most humiliating. He had been running laps around the track in PE. Of course, this meant no one had any idea what was going on except for the fact that everyone's iPod batteries were apparently running out at the same exact time. So, what made it so funny? The fact that he tripped over nothing and landed on his back, and then proceeded to be dragged by some sort of invisible hand. Now, normally this would be funny enough, but some sort of higher force decided it wasn't. Oh no, as he was getting dragged his PE shorts began to come off. Damned drawstring PE shorts. Given the fact that his arms were being pulled up by his shirt, which he was being dragged by, he didn't have a chance at keeping them on. As the other PE students stared and laughed, Kyle groaned miserably as the shorts made their way slowly down his legs, and eventually got stuck at his feet. Thanking whatever gods there were that he wasn't one of those people who go commando all the time, he attempted to spread his feet apart to keep the shorts there until the shorts were suddenly ripped off. He groaned even louder as his underwear now began to come off. And then his shirt came off just before there was any serious slippage of the underwear. He was just about to pull his underwear back up when his arms were suddenly grabbed and he was getting dragged again. Great. After a few seconds of fighting violently to get his arms free, Kyle was dropped again, just after his underwear had come all the way off. Covering the areas he'd like to keep private, he made another break for his underwear, only to be suddenly grabbed by his hair and dragged into a locker room. Although he was screaming his head off at being dragged by his hair, he still had the ability to wince further at the high-pitched screams that welcomed him. Great, he was butt-naked in the girls' locker room. He blushed a deep red as whatever was dragging him managed to get him through an air vent (it was a tight fit, if he wasn't being dragged he wouldn't have fit in at all). And just as suddenly as everything else, he was sent tumbling down into the boys' locker room. After hitting his head on a locker, he blacked out as his locker was opened and his normal clothes were put onto him. He later woke up fully dressed in a room with writing on the walls that seemed to be constantly updating itself with various pencils while Leormon rolled around laughing his head off nearby.

Jeff happened to be sitting in front of a computer in a computers class. So while everyone else had all kinds of chaos to deal with, he had nerds staring at him as binary circled him while a few of them complained about losing their connection to Dungeons and Dragons Online. Lucky him, they would all think he was "uber smart" when or if he got back. A brief white flash later, and he was lying on the ground while Gaomon stood nearby, apparently boxing the crap out of a moving picture on the wall that looked like one of those banner adds where you punch the president and get a free ringtone. There were several cell phones on the floor playing the theme music to the Digimon Season One show. Meanwhile, Jeff noted several pictures of various game systems on the walls, as well as some posters discussing new game releases. Strange room.

And in a room that resembled the login page for GaiaOnline, a Japanese girl stood next to a Lunamon and muttered "_Nande Kuso?!_"


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** So last chapter, we met the other Digidestined and managed to send them somewhere that was obviously not Earth. So where are they, and why are they in rooms that look like websites? Who is this Japanese girl? What the heck is GaiaOnline? Is Kyle wearing any underwear?! All these questions (Well, maybe not the one about Gaia. But there's Google for that) and more will be answered in the next chapter of **Digimon Morphers**!

Also, I got bored and looked up parts of Kyle's real name (Kikinakasoki if you forgot). Contrary to my belief that it was bullshit (I did make it up so it sounded like fake Japanese), it actually consists of various random words meaning such things as "crisis" and "inside". Coincidence? I THINK NOT.

**Language Key: Bold** means the language being spoken has been translated by the author to English in order to save the author from having to look up that many words in a language he doesn't know. _Italics_ is untranslated (usually because it is profanity), unless it is representing song (which will ALWAYS be in English). In this fanfiction, **bold** and _italics_ will both usually indicate that Japanese is being spoken, unless otherwise indicated.

**Disclaimer: **_My disclaimer brings all the lawyers to the yard_

_And they're like "Hey you don't own Digimon!"_

_Damn right I don't own it,_

_I just own my fricken plot!_

Chapter Four: Internet Island 

Wayne groaned loudly as he woke up. '_I really hope this is just a dream'_ was his first thought as he stumbled to his feet. Not exactly how he imagined the Digital World to be, at least. Then again, why should it look anything like it did on TV? He groaned again. "Tell me you have some idea of where we are." He asked Coronamon.

"Google." Coronamon replied, pointing a large white bar at the top of one of the walls. The bar had a URL written on it. The URL for Google.

"Why is it always me?"

Felicia wasn't doing much better. "Please tell me we didn't somehow end up on the internet _and_ on the Fox News website." She said to Labramon. She shuddered at the thought. She had nothing against somehow being on the internet, but being part of the Fox News website? Hell no.

"I'm afraid so." Labramon said, hanging his head down while raising a paw in the direction of a large white bar at the top of a wall. The URL for Fox News' website was written in it.

"And can we get out of here?" She said.

"Through Google." Labramon replied before clearing his throat and ordering "URL change: double yoo double yoo double yoo dot Google dot com."

And there was a flash of light and they stood in the corner of the room Wayne and Coronamon were in.

Kyle sighed heavily before kicking Leormon as he stood up. "Stop laughing, it wasn't funny." He said before picking up one of the pencils and walking to one of the walls and writing "Leormon" on it. He would've written more (He had been planning on writing an insult), but the moment he picked up his pencil he found himself on the other end of the room, floating in mid-air, looking at what appeared to be the Wikipedia listing for Leormon. Interesting. "We wouldn't happen to be somehow part of the internet right now, would we?"

"Yeah, Wikipedia. Why?" Leormon asked tentatively as he looked up at Kyle.

"Nothing." Kyle replied before writing into the entry "Leormon fail at life." Unfortunately for him, at the same time Leormon happened to be saying, "URL change: double yoo double yoo double yoo dot Google dot com."

Kyle groaned as he fell several feet to the floor of Google.

Jeff sighed. "You can stop punching Bush now." He said, noting the ever-growing pile of cell phones. Gaomon rolled his eyes and delivered a final punch to the banner add, resulting in yet another cell phone, as well as a crack appearing in the wall.

"Finally you're up. Come on, we need to get to Google." Gaomon said, walking towards the wall with the URL bar. It was Jeff's turn to roll his eyes.

"We aren't seriously on the internet, are we?" Jeff asked.

"Sure we are." Gaomon said before adding, "URL change: double yoo double yoo double yoo dot Google dot com."

"**Where the hell are we, Lunamon?**" The Japanese girl asked as she gazed around the room. "**Weren't we just on the plane to California?**" The room seemed familiar, yes, but she couldn't put a finger on it.

"**We're on the internet. That GaiaOnline site you visit, to be specific.**" Lunamon replied.

"_Kuso. _**How did that happen?**"

"**The internet is the point where the barrier between the real world and the Digital World is weakest, thus when things have to move between the two worlds they use the internet. Which, by the way, is actually an island in the Digital World with a huge building on it containing a room for every valid internet site.**" Lunamon explained. She sounded as if she was quoting someone else verbatim.

"**Right. Well, as long as we're here….**" The girl said before starting to speak in English "Login Name is DancingSakura. Password is Japaneseforthewin."

A few seconds later, the room had changed to display a different page. In the corner was a statue of what appeared to be someone's avatar.

"**Enough of this, we don't have time for that, Akira.**" Lunamon said. "**But keep up the English.** URL change: double yoo double yoo double yoo dot Google dot com."

"Huh?" Akira muttered before falling flat on her face on Google's floor. She lifted her head up to find three guys, a girl, and four digimon other than Lunamon staring at her. "**Uh… hi?**"

Wayne blinked in shock several times. He had thought the random arrivals would stop once Jeff got there. And here was a girl he had never met before suddenly appearing with a Lunamon. And she had just said hi in Japanese. "**And you are?**" He asked her before blinking in shock again. He had meant to say that in English. He didn't even remember knowing how to say that in Japanese.

"**Akira. And you?**" The girl replied. Of course, Wayne could see that this conversation would be heading down the tubes rather quickly if he couldn't get her speaking English, because there was no way in hell he could keep randomly speaking Japanese. He spent a couple seconds trying to figure out what she had said.

"Wayne," He began, "Coronamon, Felicia, Labramon, Kyle, Leormon, Jeff, and Gaomon." He pointed to each person as he said their name. He took a deep breath and asked, "Do you speak English? Because I honestly can't keep talking in Japanese much longer."

"Oh, sorry. I should've assumed. You can call me Kira." The girl said in a surprisingly good American accent. "_Nihon-go_ isn't something you have to learn in America, is it?"

"Oh, thank God. I did not want to have to try and communicate in hand signals like Kikinakasoki over there does whenever we use his real name." He said as he pointed at Kyle.

Leormon burst into laughter at that. "YOUR VERY NAME IS A BASTARDIZATION?!" He exclaimed as he rolled around on the floor, unable to contain his laughter.

"It's actually a mix of various words, but still pretty much gibberish." Kira said, giggling slightly.

Kyle growled and proceeded to attempt to make death threats without talking. Wayne burst out laughing. "Blame your parents, not me." He told Kyle.

"Leo Claw." Kyle muttered, displaying a sharp claw from the tip of his one-finger salute to Wayne.

Meanwhile, Coronamon seemed to have stolen the pencil Kyle had and was now writing the word 'digimon' in the search box on the floor. He coughed deliberately and pointed at the word. "In any case, I suggest we actually do something. Someone over there wanna step on the search button?" He said.

Wayne rolled his eyes and began walking towards the indicated button. He failed to notice the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button on the way, and so he tripped on it. The button went down, and then hurled Wayne off of it. A rumbling filled the room as a hole appeared in the middle of the floor.

As everyone turned their heads to the hole, a claw on the end of a tentacle appeared, stabbing into the ground. It was followed by another tentacle-claw, which slashed at the them. The digimon found themselves de-digivolved, while the humans were out of breath for a few seconds. "I get the feeling I screwed up." Wayne muttered as he picked up Sunmon.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: **So I decided to fail NaNo because my original story got too big to be written. But, this means that DM gets to start up again earlier than expected! Party time!

Coronamon: Coro Knuckle! -Punches Ikaru in the face before the poor author embarrasses himself- Sorry about that. Apologies if the end gets a little dialogue heavy. In any case though, disclaimer time.

**Disclaimer:** We're sorry; your lawsuit cannot go through. Ikaru Kakou does not own digimon.

**Chapter Five: On Our Own Already?!**

Felicia glared at Wayne as she picked up Shaomon. "Damn right you did! We're on our own already!" She yelled, backing away from the giant digimon. Was it just her, or was that one big Chrysalimon?

"Data Crusher!" The thing yelled as a giant yellow ball of energy appeared at its mouth and then shot towards the digimon and their partners. Felicia held her arms up to her head to block the blow, fearing that she would die young, when suddenly she heard Wayne shout:

"We didn't get our digimon's attacks for nothing! Petit Prominence! Corona Flame! Coro Knuckle!" Instantly five things made of fire appeared and took Wayne's shape, blocking the Data Crusher. Next, a fireball shot from Wayne's forehead straight towards the Chrysalimon as the fire clones disappeared. Finally, Wayne himself jumped at the giant digimon, Sunmon in one arm and a flaming fist on the other which soon connected with the Chrysalimon's head. Felicia could hardly believe her eyes. How did that happen, and when could she learn how?

Not to be outdone, Jeff put Wanyamon off to the side and jumped into the air spinning. "Double Backhand!" He shouted as a tornado formed around him and then shot off at Chrysalimon. This of course was followed by Kyle with a Leo Claw and strangely enough Kira shouting something in Japanese as black claws grew from her fingers and she slashed the Chrysalimon.

Baffled as she was, Felicia couldn't help but think about how she didn't remember any of Labramon's attacks aside from Cure Liquor, which was totally useless in this situation. Looking down at Shaomon, she asked "A little help here? Surely there's something aside from curing things."

"Retribark." Shaomon muttered as the other digimon were busy cheering on their partners. "But be careful, it-" He was cut off as Felicia was already attacking.

"Retribark!" She yelled before suddenly growing a Labramon muzzle and barking. The sound waves from the bark were visible as blue circles, which slammed into Chrysalimon. The side effect Shaomon had been about to warn about, however, was that soon afterwards a lost object would come flying out of nowhere towards you. In this case, a pair of high-heeled shoes Felicia had left at a friend's house once ended up leaving a red bump on her forehead.

"Ouchie!"

After a few stares for getting hit in the head, Felicia shook it off and looked up to see the Chrysalimon glaring at them all. "Internet Surge!" It shouted as a beam of yellow energy shot straight towards Felicia. She rolled out of the way and ran up to the giant thing and slapped it. No digimon attack, just a slap. The Chrysalimon roared and attempted to hit her with one of its tentacles, only to be stopped by Kyle biting it. Using the distraction to her advantage, Felicia ran for the shoes, picked them up, and holding one in each hand, ran forward again to hit the giant digimon with the points of the heels. A few seconds later, the giant digimon seemed to collapse into several normal Chrysalimon. These smaller digimon appeared afraid and they all flew back down the hole, which closed after them.

"Well that was shorter than expected." Sunmon said from where he was on the floor. "Good job for your first time, and you did it all on your own too."

"That was short?" Wayne asked, not entirely sure he should believe Sunmon. Sure, he had an automatic desire to believe his digimon partner, but if that was short for a beginner group, how were they supposed to deal with the real thing?

"Normally that would've taken us twice as long because Shaomon doesn't like to use his actual attacking move. Something about losing some boulders or something." Frimon replied, poking Shaomon with his tail.

"You try having even a pair of high heels thrown at you every time you attack!" Felicia exclaimed, still rubbing the bump on her head from the now broken pair of heels she held. "Cure Liquor." She muttered, hoping that it would help the bump without any other side effects. Just her luck, everyone's head, including the digimon's, was tilted back, their mouths opened, and a bottle of brandy poured into their mouths. While the liquor did heal them, it was still alcohol. Therefore, while the digimon seemed perfectly fine, and had even digivolved back to usual, the humans were all starting to feel a little tipsy.

Jeff was heard groaning as he made his way to the wall so he could lean against something. "You just had to use the attack that made us all drunk, didn't you?" He asked her.

"Oh, relax. It's digi-alcohol. Absolutely will not get you above the legal driving limit." Leormon joked.

"At least it got the taste of live tentacle out of my mouth." Kyle muttered, "Critical Bite is not going on my list of favorite attacks. I think I might've bit my tongue too, I tasted blood for a while there."

"Well that's one way to get a pierced tongue, isn't it Kyle-kun?" Kira asked.

Kyle stared angrily at Kira. "You just insulted me in Japanese, didn't you?" He asked.

"Kun is what you say at the end of a guy's name, Kyle." Wayne said, rolling his eyes.

"Yeah, you might want to get out of the habit of saying that today, Akira. They don't actually say that in America, it just shows up on Gaia because so many people are japanaphiles there." Lunamon said, twitching her ears.

"You use Gaia? What's your username?!" Wayne asked, suddenly interested.

"DancingSakura. You?" Kira replied

"Flamewarrior39." Wayne said, making note of Kira's username.

"In any case, we're not just here to talk." Gaomon said loudly, staring at a new hole that was opening up in the floor. Rising on a platform was a hologram of an old man.

"Hello Digidestined. I'm Shiguya, Shiguya Retomasi." The man said, looking out at them all with eyes hidden behind huge bushy eyebrows. "And though I do partially agree with Gaomon, I think you'll find certain topics of discussion to be quite useful right now. For instance, the very reason you're here."

Jeff raised his eyebrow. "Right…. And we should trust you why?"

"Why not? I'm the first thing you guys have encountered here not from Earth that hasn't tried to attack you. I think you'll understand better once I fill you in," The old man began. "As usual when Digidestined are taken from Earth, the Digital World is in trouble. And as usual, it's all the fault of some evil mega-level digimon trying to take over the whole place and rule it with an iron fist. In this case, the evil digimon is trying to take over by using the mythic spires, which are scattered across the Digital World. Mythic spires are spikes made of stone that stick out of the ground at about the height of a Wargreymon which change color depending on whether they're controlled by good people, evil people, or neutral people. Their neutral state tends to blend with the environment, whereas the evil state is black and the good state is white. Mythic spires affect the digimon around them that don't have human partners. In the evil state, these digimon all become either good or evil. And the good ones are usually the minority in not only numbers but power as well. In the neutral state, digimon are seen in whatever state they naturally take to, and in the good state digimon are either good or neutral."

"And how many mythic spires are there?" Felicia asked, raising an eyebrow.

"One hundred eleven," The old man stated matter-of-factly. "But about fifty of them are already evil. Eleven are good, and fifty are neutral."

"How do we change them to good?" Jeff asked.

"Evil ones require fighting the strongest evil digimon in the area, which will usually be a minion of the big bad evil digimon."

"Where would we be finding them?"

"There's a map to the nearest two spires and their state on each spire as well as a counter for good, evil, and neutral spires. They go along in a shape relatively like a line that twists around the Digital World a couple times. The first one is right outside the exit of the building you're all in."

"What's the name of the main bad guy, how do we get out of here, and when can we start?" Wayne asked.

"You can start now, you get out by googling exit and hitting the 'I'm Feeling Lucky' button, and the main bad guy…." Shiguya stopped talking for a few seconds and appeared to look around where he was. "His name is Hadesdramon. You're on your own from there, I'll stop by and help when I can." And with that, he disappeared.

"Wait! On our own already?!" Lunamon shouted, running at the hologram and stopping when it vanished. She blinked a few times before whispering, "We're screwed."


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: **Undoubtedly you will not know any of the characters in this chapter of the fic until it gets towards the end. Why? Because I'm going to…. You know what, I'll let you find out on your own. BTW, although you may recognize some of the new digimon introduced, I assure you they are not the same one's as seen in the show/movie/manga/wherever you may have seen them before. Aside from that, please R&R, have fun, and remember that Hadesdramon has cookies.

**Disclaimer: **Although I wish I did own it, I don't speak enough Japanese to own Digimon or even consider buying it.

**Chapter Six: Meanwhile…**

"Fricken Arkadimon. Why do I always have to give Hadesdramon the bad news?" Was the complaint uttered by a very frustrated BlackAgumon as he left a meeting with Arkadimon and his human partner Dan. It'd been almost four years since the human and his spider-like digimon first showed up in the Digital World and started causing problems. Hadesdramon had apparently mentioned something about a prophecy and gone out to find the two himself, an action that got Dan and Arkadimon BlackAgumon's respect almost instantly. After all, it wasn't every day that the lord of all evil digimon left his volcano lair just to go meet someone else. It wasn't more than a few months before Arkadimon digivolved to Rookie (still calling himself Arkadimon for some reason). From there however, things had gone downhill. Arkadimon and Dan started going out on missions for Hadesdramon, and whenever there was good news it seemed to come from the human and the single-namer, while all bad news seemed to come from BlackAgumon. This of course meant that BlackAgumon began to harbor feelings of hatred towards the two, which were only magnified a few days ago when the two announced that not only could Arkadimon digivolve to Champion, still with the same name, but that Dan could also 'biovolve', a term which apparently meant something similar to digivolution and involved Dan growing body parts resembling parts of Arkadimon's Champion form. BlackAgumon almost didn't go to this meeting because of that.

"I don't know how more humans is bad news to Hadesdramon anyway, but if it were good news they would have told him themselves instead of pawning it off on me." The black lizard grumbled.

"Erase Sickle." BlackAgumon turned around just in time to see the tip of Arkadimon Rookie's extended claw come to a stop directly in front of his throat. The claw itself, however, was attached to Dan. "You would do well to stop complaining and go tell Hadesdramon." The human ordered. "Next time the claw won't stop until it's gone through to the other side of your throat."

BlackAgumon gulped, feeling the tip of the claw press against his throat. "Yes, _sir._" He growled, holding up has clawed hand as he backed away slowly. "Digital Portal, pre-set destination: Hadesdramon's Lair." He said as a purple portal opened up between him and Dan. A white beam shot out of the portal and moved across him, first turning him into cubes, then turning the cubes into binary that was sucked up by the portal. On the other side of the portal, the binary reconfigured into BlackAgumon, who put his hand down and turned around as the portal closed. Rather than opening directly into the chamber where Hadesdramon was, the portal had opened to the hallway leading there. Which was exactly as BlackAgumon liked it. Coming out of a portal in general sucked, and coming out of one to find yourself face to face with Hadesdramon was worse.

He proceeded to walk down the hallway, hoping to whatever gods there were that Hadesdramon was in one of his moods where he kept the whole room dark.

Meanwhile, Dan strode back into the conference room where he had left Arkadimon. "He was being insolent." He said as he kept walking out the door at the other end. He saw Arkadimon nod and follow him, and together they walked to the computer room. Once there, Dan sat down and logged on, once again in search of a mythic spire. After about an hour, he found one in the most obvious place he could ever have thought of. "Internet Island. Of course there's a spire there, the polarity theory. While Hadesdramon has one in the very chamber he resides in, there's another one at the exact opposite end of the world." He grinned and stood up.

"Digital Portal, coordinates one-hundred seventy-nine degrees, fifty-nine minutes south, zero degrees longitude, facing south." He said as he held up a hand. Just as when BlackAgumon had opened a portal, a white beam shot out of the portal and turned Dan and Arkadimon into binary that was sucked into the portal and then reconfigured on the other end. As expected, once he was reconfigured Dan was facing the giant building known in the human world as the Internet. He stood on a sandy shore, and was unsurprised that it was a rather tropical climate here. After all, the Digital World rarely made sense in these things.

He glanced around and soon found what he was looking for. A large earthen spire stood a little to his left. He made his way towards the spire only to soon find himself face to face with a Meramon roaming the island. "Pity, I had thought this would be easy." He said as Arkadimon's claws formed over his hands.

"You will leave this island, servant of Hadesdramon." The Meramon said, standing directly in his path.

Raising an eyebrow, Dan said "Erase Sickle." As his right claw and Arkadimon's right claw both extended at the same time straight at Meramon.

"Fire Blast!" Shouted the Meramon as the flames on it suddenly grew in size and power and it swatted the Arkadimon claws away before rushing at Arkadimon.

Dan frowned. "Arkadimon, digivolve." He ordered. With a nod, Arkadimon was surrounded in a white light before appearing again with wings, actual hands, and some sort of tentacle with a sharp tip growing out of each elbow. However, this wasn't all. A white light now surrounded Dan as he said "Dan biovolve to: Dan Arkadimon Champion Mode!" The only visible difference was a skin tone closer to Arkadimon's and the elbow tentacles, but the difference in power was easily sensed. "Snatch Whip!" He shouted as the elbow tentacles on both him and Arkadimon picked Meramon up, shook off the excess fire, and dragged the champion digimon to them. "Prison Fist!" Dan shouted as their tentacles dropped Meramon to be replaced by their hands. Dan and Arkadimon both drew back a sharp-tipped tentacle and impaled Meramon with them. The now unconscious Meramon was hurled to the side as Dan used his other tentacle to impale the spire.

Dark clouds surrounded the area as a dark energy flowed down Dan's arm and the tentacle and into the spire. A few minutes later, the dark clouds went away and Meramon's fire turned to darker shades. Dan removed his tentacle from the spire, which was now smooth and had the appearance of black marble. "We leave, Arkadimon." He said, holding up a hand to open a portal. "Digital Portal, pre-set destination: The Complex."

As he was being turned to data, Dan saw the door to the large building open out of the corner of his eye and the head of a Coronamon sticking out. "Shit." He muttered, quickly slapping Meramon awake with a tentacle before he was completely turned to binary and sucked into the portal. Reappearing on the other end in the conference room, he slammed his fist on the table. "Damn it! They saw!"

BlackAgumon thanked whatever gods there were that Hadesdramon had the lights off so the only source of light came from the lava pit on Hadesdramon's side of the room. "My lord, I bring news from Dan and Arkadimon." He said, kneeling and bowing at the same time.

A low rumble came from the lava pit. "And what is this news?"

"They say that other humans have shown up, on Internet Island."

"Did they have any confirmation of this?"

"A security cam we had planted in one of the banner ads on saw the appearance of a human and a Gaomon. The camera stopped functioning after the Gaomon repeatedly punched the banner ad."

A deep growl was heard and blue fire shot out from nostrils hidden in the shadows. "This is not good news. I want these humans dealt with."

"Yes, lord Hadesdramon." BlackAgumon said, preparing to leave.

"And the news on Project Dark Gas?"

BlackAgumon stopped getting up. "PDG is proceeding smoothly and they are now in search of a neutral area to test in. All calculations point to the project functioning perfectly."

A low chuckle now echoed in the room. "Very well. You may leave, BlackAgumon."

BlackAgumon nodded and quickly stood and walked out of the room, opening a portal to The Complex as soon as he was out in the hallway. Perhaps not all was lost if he could deal with the humans. Once out of the portal, he made his way through the hallways to the R and D department, ignoring the sight of Dan and Arkadimon's data reconfiguring in the conference room. Perhaps it was time he checked on PFWD...

Coronamon rubbed his butt again as he stuck his head out the door and saw what appeared to be a human and a digimon dissolving into binary outside. He raised an eyebrow as a tentacle that seemed to be protruding from the human's arm leapt out past his line of sight briefly and then got digitized with the rest of the human. "Weird…."


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N:** Well, I really wanna just get this chapter over with. I got an idea for something the other day, but I can't do it until I deal with this chapter. In any case though, I'm putting in the digital world's time system now, it may stay, it may not. It will signal any scene change with the time (DT means Digital Time) and place. If the abbreviation next to the time is not DT, the scene takes place outside of the digital world.

**Disclaimer:** One in One Digimon Fanfiction writers want to own Digimon. None of them do, otherwise it wouldn't be a fanfiction. Also, any claims made about seasons of the show here must be taken with a grain of salt, as I haven't seen any of them but Data Squad in ages. And I saw Data Squad in Japanese with subtitles, so something would obviously have changed by the time Wayne, Felicia, Kyle, and Jeff saw it. Furthermore, if my Japanese here is incorrect, I blame the Langenscheidt Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary with Blue Headwords, which I do own a copy of, but not the rights to.

**Chapter Seven: First Spires**

_14:23DT/Internet Island/Mythic Spire # 1_

"You know, for being the one of us who landed on top of everyone else, you sure don't seem like it." Jeff said to Coronamon, earning him to flaming middle finger salutes.

"It isn't my fault that I was furthest from where that hole started opening! Besides, Gaomon isn't exactly soft once you get past the fur." Coronamon stepped out the door and looked around. Seeing another human, he was expecting to see a white spire outside. Instead, he saw the exact opposite, along with a very angry looking Meramon. His eyes widened. "Digimon first, partners prepared to step in if they have to." He muttered back to the others. There was some quiet shifting around as Leormon, Gaomon, Lunamon, and Labramon joined him. Coronamon's last few words had set everyone on edge.

"Look, uh, we don't wanna cause any trouble…." Labramon began before a fireball was shot at him. He barely managed to jump out of the way. "Fine, be that way." He said, a low growl following it.

"Roaring Fire!" The Meramon shouted as flames erupted from his hands.

"Petit Prominence!" Coronamon shouted as flame clones of himself appeared and attempted to block the fire being shot at the digimon. Instead, the flame clones made the fire stronger. "Shit."

"Tear Shoot!" Lunamon said as a barrage of water balls appeared out of nowhere and began pummeling the fire. "Next time remember that fighting fire with fire never works." She whispered to Coronamon.

"Retribark!" Everyone turned and stared as Labramon used the attack. It wasn't every day Labramon used the attack, and for the most part Labramon usually stayed out of battles and healed everyone afterwards. The visible soundwaves struck Meramon and seemed to do very little. But Labramon seemed to have something else in mind as a large statue was seen falling through the air towards him. The dog digimon spun around on his front paws just in time to kick the statue towards Meramon as hard as he could. The statue shattered from the force of the kick, but the bigger chunks kept flying towards the flaming digimon.

"Magma Blast!" The Meramon screamed as the chunks of statue suddenly caught fire and turned molten. The molten rocks then switched course and turned to pummel the digimon. Most of the rocks hit with enough force to de-digivolve Leormon, Coronamon, Gaomon, and Labramon, but Lunamon escaped by emitting a large amount of foam like that at the top of a wave and using the momentum to do a spinning jump. The rock heading towards Lunamon, however, kept going towards Akira.

"Lunamon!" Akira cried out desperately, too surprised to even jump out of the way. She cringed only to hear:

"Lunamon, digivolve to: Lekismon! Moon Night Kick!" Looking up, Akira saw something that looked vaguely like Lunamon kicking the rock straight at Meramon. "Tear Arrow!" Lekismon shouted as an arrow made of ice appeared between the sticks on her back and shot towards Meramon. The rock had stunned Meramon enough to keep him in place as the ice arrow hit him, melting into water but moving with the same momentum mere millimeters before it hit. Now doused with water, the Meramon collapsed on the ground, the flames where he had been hit gone to reveal a scaly black chest. The Meramon shuddered as it de-digivolved into DemiMeramon.

Then again, DemiMeramon wasn't the only thing shuddering, as proved when a brick from the internet fell and hit it on the head, further de-digivolving it into a digitama ((**A/N: **The kind of digiegg that hatches into a digimon for those of you who don't know)). A white light seemed to come down from the sky and touch down on the tip of the mythic spire, which had been black. Once touched by the light, however, the mythic spire turned white again and a screen appeared on its side.

Not that anyone noticed that, as everyone was too busy staring at Lekismon. The first thing anyone said was Wayne saying "Well, that's a little cliché."

"How so?" Jeff asked.

"Every season of the show, the first show includes someone digivolving in the first episode. We've barely been here half an hour if you start counting from when we woke up. Think about it." Felicia stated.

"Maybe, but technically they all start in the real world too. Which means that we'd be in the second episode by now. Hah!" Kyle said victoriously.

"And this is all relevant why?" Akira asked, "Why don't we congratulate Lekismon here instead of saying how cliché this whole incident is." She said, getting up and walking over to Lekismon. She hugged her partner and whispered "_Arigato_."

"_Do itashishimashite._" Lekismon replied. The world seemed to go quiet for a while. Of course, someone had to break the silence.

"What in the what now?" Kyle asked.

"Moment ruiner. It was all nice and then it was like someone walks into a quiet room screaming about a papercut." Wayne said.

"But what does it mean?!" Kyle begged.

"Shut up for five minutes and maybe they'll tell you." Leormon said, jumping up and holding Kyle's mouth shut with his paw. The overall effect was reminiscent of Pokemon whenever Brock starts obsessing over a girl. Jeff actually laughed at it.

"In any case, congratulations Lekismon." Felicia said

"Yeah, we couldn't have done it without you." Labramon added.

And so things went for the next half hour or so until Lekismon got tired of it and de-digivolved to Lunamon and made everyone go look at the spire and figure out how to get to the next one so they could leave.

_14:25DT/The Complex/Conference Room_

Dan frowned as he came out the other end of the portal. In all likelihood the other humans were already taking on the Meramon and about to turn the spire white. Just another problem he had to deal with. He much preferred the days in the digital world where everything was much simpler, back when he first started messing with the spires for Hadesdramon. He still remembered the very first spire he'd changed from neutral to black….

_10:13DT, 3 years & 8 months ago/Somewhere in the Digital World/Dan's first spire_

It was raining. That was the first thing Dan noticed about the island, which was likely very beautiful and sunny most of the time. Hadesdramon had just invented the digital portal device, and he had wanted Dan to test it out on his first mission. This led to the second thing Dan noticed while on the island. A distinct sense of wanting to throw up, most likely caused by the transportation as data being a very dizzying experience at first. The third thing he noticed was the Floramon looking curiously at him.

He spared the Floramon a glance before turning to his side, seeing an equally nauseous-looking Arkadimon right where he had been before they had gone through the portal. He gave Arkadimon a look that asked if he was all right, the only response being a nod and what seemed to be an attempt at hiding the nausea. With that, he looked around in search of the thing they'd been sent for: the mythic spire. Hadesdramon had told him it would be visible from where they landed, but he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

"You lookin' for somethin' mistah?" The Floramon asked curiously. It was rewarded with a brief glare from Dan before Dan realized that the Floramon might be of some use.

"The mythic spire. I was told it would be nearby, but I'm not seeing it." He replied, softening his expression so as to fool the Floramon. The Floramon gestured at a tree. Or at least, Dan had thought it was a tree at first. Upon closer inspection, he discovered that it was in fact simply a spire of wood that went into the canopy of the trees around it.

"Thank you." He said, nodding to Arkadimon. Arkadimon held up an arm and suddenly the claw on the end began to extend rapidly. The Floramon's expression suddenly changed from one of curiosity and helpfulness to one of anger and determination.

"Hey! What are you doing to the–"

The Floramon was cut off as suddenly it collapsed on the ground when Arkadimon's claw came into contact with the spire, digging into it slightly. Dark clouds, darker than the rain clouds already present, rolled in above them. Dark energy, barely visible at first but gradually growing more distinct, began to run down Arkadimon's arm and claw and into the spire. Dan stared in awe. "That didn't happen when we were training yesterday." He said. The response from Arkadimon was a slow nod; confusion that could only be evident to someone who knew Arkadimon as well as Dan did mixed in with it.

Arkadimon attempted to remove the claw, only to somehow end up with the claw sinking in deeper. Deciding that the effort to remove the claw was useless for the moment, Dan decided to wait it out. A few minutes later, the claw was suddenly shrunk back down to normal size and Arkadimon was sent reeling backwards, as though the claw had been hurled out of the spire, which had now turned black, as if burnt. Once again the confusion evident only to Dan appeared as the Floramon seemed to turn darker somehow, and the trees turned black and lost their leaves, as though a fire had ripped through the forest. This change spread slowly across the island, observed by Dan for a while before the Floramon began showing signs of waking up.

"Digital Portal, pre-set destination: The Complex." Dan said, grabbing Arkadimon as they began to turn into the raw data that was assimilated by the portal, spat out, and reconfigured on the other end. When greeted by BlackAgumon on the other end, Dan said nothing and made his way through the long halls and towards his room. He stopped only briefly to leave a note on the table telling BlackAgumon to tell Hadesdramon that the spire was black and the portal worked, albeit causing some slight nausea.

_14:26DT, back in the present/The Complex/Conference Room_

Dan shook his head, clearing the memory from his mind. Ever since then he had been working for Hadesdramon, going out and changing spires to black whenever Hadesdramon found one, or once the computer system had been invented, whenever he found one using that. The nausea from the portal had been fixed (to a point) within a few weeks, and any remaining nausea from it disappeared after a while as you got used to it. Things had been simple for the most part. The R and D department always seemed to have something for him to test out, and when he wasn't busy with that he and Arkadimon would train, eventually figuring out digimerging and how Dan could then use Arkadimon's abilities. And that's how he had spent his days, until now. He'd recognized the human seen in the footage from the camera on Internet Island. It was Jeff. He wondered how Jeff could have stayed the same age for so long, entirely forgetting that he himself hadn't seemed to age during the almost four years he'd been in the digital world.

Puzzled by the idea of not aging for four years, and not looking forward to telling Hadesdramon that the spire he had just turned black was likely going to be white by the time he got the news to Hadesdramon, he headed off to his room and decided not to tell Hadesdramon about that last spire. Arkadimon followed silently, just as he always had. Dan sometimes wondered why Arkadimon didn't speak, but he figured the digimon didn't see any reason to when the only important people he knew understood anything he would want to say without him talking.

Once he reached his room, Dan closed the door as soon as Arkadimon was in, turned off the lights, and fell asleep on the bed.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N:** And now the chapter I've wanted to do for a long time now. In it we find a reference to Family Guy, but nothing I need to disclaim about. First person to review with the correct answer to what the reference is to will get the champion-level digimon of their choice included as the digimon Wayne and all his people have to fight at their next tower. Also, in reference to last chapter: Just because Dan's surprised that Jeff hadn't aged doesn't mean that Dan necessarily has either. They're the same age, and they always have been (excepting that Dan was born a few weeks earlier). Decipher that little surprise and you get to choose how soon Wayne and co reach the spire that was Dan's first (not in chapters, but in how many spires it takes them to get there. It will NOT be the next one, as I have plans for Dan's spire already).

**Disclaimer:** Yeah, sure I own Digimon. I own Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts, Pokemon, and Harry Potter too.

**Chapter Eight: Pointless Epic Filler**

_16:04DST / Between Mythic Spires #1 and #2 / A land bridge over a canyon / South End_

"Just over this one and then we can set up camp for the night, I promise." Wayne said as he started walking across the fairly narrow land bridge. The fall from the bridge was at least fifty feet, not that any of the Digidestined cared. They'd discovered that the digital world's magical features included the inability for you to get hurt from falling less than seventy feet when Leormon had attempted to run across the first land bridge and fallen off. It'd set them back half an hour trying to get him back up to them, but the information was useful.

As it was, Gaomon was still anxious about crossing this bridge. It was late enough so that the bottom of the canyon was all shadows and you couldn't really see what was at the bottom. He took up the rear guard, directly behind the ever-clumsy Leormon, and began to make his way across the bridge, glancing back every now and then to make sure nothing sinister was following them.

About halfway across the bridge, while checking behind again, Gaomon tripped. He fell off the bridge, rolling his eyes in annoyance and preparing for a fairly rough landing. Instead of hitting the ground hard and being left with a sore tail for a little while though, he found himself landing on something softer than the ground. He looked down as he got up and saw what he had landed on: A now very angry looking Bearmon. "Crap." He uttered as the Bearmon rushed at him, obviously intent on doing some serious damage to the dog digimon.

"Bear Fist!" it shouted, hurling a particularly nasty punch in Gaomon's direction. Gaomon was sent flying into the wall of the canyon. The dog digimon slowly turned his head to the bear digimon, a devilish glint in his eyes.

"Gao Rush!" He shouted as he began to send a series of high-speed punches straight into the Bearmon's stomach. In answer, the Bearmon curled up into a ball after hitting the opposite wall and began rolling at Gaomon. Gaomon was certainly not going to take this. "Rolling Upper!" He exclaimed, sending the balled up bear digimon up into the air and much further down the canyon. He ran after it and when it finally landed it was well prepared for him with a well-timed slash. This Gaomon dodged and countered with yet another uppercut, which this time sent Bearmon out of the canyon. A few jumps later, Gaomon was back out of the canyon, glaring at the Bearmon that was rushing towards him. He took the punch right in the stomach and went flying all the way across the canyon and into a natural pillar of rock that upon being hit broke. The broken pillar collapsed across the canyon, creating a bridge Bearmon ran across to slash Gaomon. The bear digimon was greeted with a kick to the crotch.

Thus began a rivalry that would last for ages.

_Unknown time later / Unknown forest_

The quiet in the small forest was broken by the sound of a great tree falling to the ground. This was followed by a shout of "Double Backhand" and the sound of many more trees being ripped out of the ground. Deep in the forest, a Bearmon glared at a small blue tornado that was sending said trees flying at him. Said tornado slowed down just as the trees all began to fly back at it, deflected by a heavy punch from the Bearmon. The Gaomon that had been the source of the tornado barely managed to jump out of the way. Seconds later, Gaomon found himself facing a Bearmon that was somehow holding up one of the uprooted trees like a baseball bat. The resulting collision left Gaomon flying through the air out of the forest, and caused such a noise that many of the fresh level digimon in the forest panicked and began to run (or bounce, as limbs and lack thereof permitted) around in circles.

_Unknown time later / The Great Digimon City of Digitropolis_

The great digimon city of Digitropolis was in a panic. Merely five minutes ago there had been reports of a heavily splintered, bruised, and generally bloodied Gaomon landing in the middle of a city street after having apparently been propelled into the air by a large and heavy object. Less than two minutes later, the Gaomon stood up as if it was perfectly fine and engaged in what could only be described as an all out fight to the death with a Bearmon that had come rushing into the city hardly ten seconds after the Gaomon had landed. As it was now, the two opposing digimon stood atop the Yggdrasil Monument, a skyscraper that served as a temple of worship for the god of the digimon. Several of the temple's stained glass windows had been shattered, as had the windows of several hundred other buildings in the city and many of the construction vehicles. The screams of frightened worshippers fleeing the temple didn't reach the two digimon engaged in a back and forth fistfight that eventually led them off of the skyscraper and back into the streets, where their fight took them to the site of the annual Festival of the Input. The fairgrounds didn't stand a chance, and for those few digimon unlucky enough to be on the Ferris wheel, they soon found said wheel rolling on its own down city streets with the two contenders atop it. Eventually the wheel rolled over an open sewer hatch, into which fell the two fighting digimon. Their battle took them through the sewers for quite a long way until eventually the Bearmon was left unconscious on the edge of a platform above a pool of water.

If the battle had taken place in the real world, the cost to repair the damages would exceed five trillion dollars.

_Unknown time later / A beachside cave_

Gaomon stumbled out of the cave covered in sewage, cuts, bruises, splinters, shrapnel, and a variety of kinds of dirt. He had two black eyes, and he held his left arm as though it was broken, but had yet to be attended to by a medical professional. He began the long trek back to the land bridge he had fallen off of.

_16:05DST / Between Mythic Spires #1 and #2 / A land bridge over a canyon / North End_

A miraculously healed Gaomon calmly climbed up over the side of the canyon and was greeted by Jeff, Kyle, Wayne, Kira, Felicia, Coronamon, Lunamon, Leormon, and Labramon. No time seemed to have passed in his escapade with Bearmon, and if anything it seemed that the battle had never occurred. The only sign that it had occurred was a three small claw marks on Gaomon's cheek, which he attributed to his fall when the others asked him. If they were lucky, tomorrow they would reach the second Mythic Spire.

_16:05DST / The sewers below Digitropolis_

Bearmon opened his eyes and stood up as if nothing had happened. He calmly walked over to the nearest exit into Digitropolis and climbed up the ladder into the streets. He too seemed to have been miraculously healed aside from a bloody nose and some dirt on his hat. He was not questioned about the fight, as no one had been able to figure out who or what kind of digimon the fighters were.

**End A/N: **Sorry the chapter took so long to finish, but you have no idea how hard it is to write an epic fight scene until you try. And this was my first attempt. And no, it isn't actually just filler. It's a side-plot that will eventually join up with the real plot. For now, just look forward to another chapter in the future where similar things occur. Until then: Digital Portal, coordinate url matching that of review form.

Or in other words, Read and Review!


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:** And now we get back on track with some progress. Thanks to Shiguya (who I later harassed in MSNIM to force him to choose a digimon), we now get the joy of facing a SandYanmamon at the next tower. Which makes things a lot easier on me, as the desert environment set in the last chapter makes it fit perfectly. But now onto more important things than this author's note, such as the disclaimer (style stolen from Nolaquen265, who I doubt reads this) and the actual chapter!

**Disclaimer:** Ikaru calmly sat in his study, once again cursing the writing gods. How did he manage to remain calm while doing so? And exactly why was he cursing them? Well, he curses them so often that it comes second nature, with the reasoning behind it usually the same: The damned bastards always inspired him late at night when he had to get up early the next day.

So it was that Ikaru was typing up the disclaimer for the next chapter of Digimon Morphers at 11:45 at night when Dan walked in. At the moment, Dan was at his champion level, as he often was in the mansion that Ikaru and the characters from all of his writings called home. And Dan was pissed. "Get off the damn computer, it's getting late and it's hard enough to sleep through Luna's incessant drinking with his friends. Your typing isn't helping."

"But I'm writing! I don't wanna go to bed!" Ikaru yelled childishly before being silenced as he was dragged out of his chair by a Snatch Whip. He made a note to describe the elbow tentacles as _not_ being slimy in the fic so that the real things would stop being so slimy. The fact that Dan had elbow tentacles at all was disturbing enough.

"Either you go to bed, or you wake up in the morning to find yourself in a vat of Luna's favorite drink!" Dan ordered, knowing that Ikaru was deathly afraid of giant vats of blood. Perhaps it should be mentioned that Luna is not in fact Lunamon, but a vampire-like original character and villain from Ikaru's original fiction that never quite seems to get off the ground.

Struggling against the elbow tentacle, Ikaru wailed "Please, just lemme tell them how I don't own Digimon!" He barely managed to get back to the desk and type the few words before Dan managed to drag him out of the study. Once he was barricaded in his room, Ikaru made note to have something very embarrassing happen to Dan in the next chapter. As it was he guessed he'd just celebrate his longest chapter for anything yet, but just as soon as he could break out of his room in the morning and get to the computer, he swore….

**Chapter Nine: Thunderous Mane**

_11:43DST/The Yanma Desert/Mythic Spire #2_

Kyle groaned miserably as he collapsed in the slight amount of shade offered by the spire. "I swear, if we have to fight a champion level digimon here, I'm gonna kill someone. It's too hot!"

"Says you. It's still kinda cold to me." Coronamon said, lying down and staring directly at the sun. Apparently the small fire lion was immune to sun-blindness.

Wayne nodded and lied down next to Coronamon and did the same. He seemed immune to the sun-blindness as well. This suited everyone else fine, as the two didn't take up any of the precious shade. "So we just wait here until something shows up?" He asked as everyone noted the black color of the spire.

"Guess so." Jeff replied sleepily. Jeff and Gaomon had both been extremely unwilling to wake up this morning, and neither one of them offered any explanation to why they were so tired. Jeff seemed to not even know. He yawned loudly and muttered something about waking him up if something happened.

And so it was that for the next half hour the Digidestined sat by a black mythic spire with nothing to do but wait. Then the portal opened and the sand began to heave upward all around them.

Appearing from the portal was none other than Dan and Arkadimon. From the sand came what must have been an army of Gotsumon. "Good afternoon, Digidestined." Dan said as everyone stared at him.

"Dan?!" Felicia shouted. "What are you doing here? And where were you in Broadcasting yesterday? You were there the day before."

"I could ask the same first question to all of you. I've been here for the past four years, though. Don't quite see how you could have seen me a couple days ago." Dan said before getting back onto the topic it seemed he had come to discuss. "In any case, I'm here to get rid of you. Hadesdramon has a policy of crushing opposition early on, before they get troublesome." The fact that I knew some of them in the real world didn't seem to affect his orders, and he saw it to be in his best interest to annihilate them.

"Get rid of us? What do you mean?!" Kyle exclaimed, seeming to only just notice the Gotsumon.

"I thought it was clear enough. You die. Gotsumon, attack the Rookies. Arkadimon and myself shall take the two Champions. Digivolve, Arkadimon." Dan ordered, snapping his fingers as a dark black gas of some sort began to emanate from somewhere on him. The gas went up the noses of the Gotsumon, and immediately Wayne, Jeff, Kyle, and Felicia (with partners) were surrounded while Akira and Lunamon were thrust towards Dan. A white light briefly overtook Arkadimon's Rookie form only to fade away and reveal his Champion form.

"Champions… plural?" Akira asked, glancing at Lunamon.

"Lunamon digivolve to… Lekismon!" The rabbit-like Champion raised an eyebrow as well, only to be thrown to the side by Arkadimon's tentacles.

"I see, you haven't discovered biovolution yet. Allow me to demonstrate for you. Dan biovolve to… Dan Arkadimon Champion Mode!" Spheres of white light appeared on the teen's elbows momentarily to reveal a single small black cylinder on each elbow. A slot opened on each cylinder and tentacles exactly like those of Arkadimon Champion came out. "Snatch Whip!" He shouted as the tentacles picked up a screaming Akira and dragged her to him.

Lekismon found herself too busy with Arkadimon to help Akira. "Aki!" She shouted, only to be punched in the stomach by a now airborne Arkadimon. Function two of Arkadimon's Prison Fist: A punch with the actual fist causes the enemy's data to glitch momentarily and freeze them in place for a few seconds. Lekismon was momentarily frozen as binary glitched all about her body.

Akira stared in terror as she saw Dan draw back a fist while the tentacles brought her swiftly towards him. Bracing herself for impact, she didn't notice the white light that flashed or the vibration of her cell phone turned Digivice in her pocket.

_In the midst of the horde of Gotsumon…._

Kyle whirled around and slashed another Gotsumon across the face. His mouth hung open to reveal the sharpened teeth of Leormon and some blood. It wasn't Gotsumon blood. Biting down on hard rock would do that to you. Luckily, the few Gotsumon he had used Critical Bite on were now nothing more than data dust in the wind. Wind that he acutely noticed was picking up. "Leo Claw!" He shouted again as he smacked a rock fist away from himself for what must've been the tenth time in less than two minutes. He'd learned from the first punch and the bruise now on his cheek that getting punched by solid rock wasn't much better than biting it. At his feet, Leormon wasn't doing much better. The lion cub had managed to take care of a few more Gotsumon, but the real progress was being made by Wayne, Coronamon, and Labramon. The two fire users because of their supply of fire clones, and Labramon because, well, who wouldn't be kicking butt if they were kicking boulders at the enemy?

Kyle grabbed Leormon and jumped over the nearest Gotsumon, how he found the strength to do so was beyond him at the moment, and found himself behind a wall of purses, clothes, shoes, and assorted make-up. Cornered against said wall with him was Felicia. "Finally found a better use for that hot pink eye shadow?" He asked, gesturing at the newest addition to the wall. The Gotsumon hit by the sound wave disintegrated, but not before Kyle managed to see green nail polish splattered on its chest.

"It keeps the enemy at my front where I can see them." Felicia replied shortly before adding "Retribark!" A pink fairy princess Halloween costume found itself hurled at a Gotsumon that had stumbled back upon being hit by the sound wave.

"Good strategy." Leormon said, albeit he doubted anyone heard him. After all, his mouth was full of Gotsumon ear at the moment. Said Gotsumon ear was momentarily destroyed with the rest of the Gotsumon by a rock sent flying by a kick from Labramon's hind legs. The sound wave itself had hit a different Gotsumon.

If Leormon had evaluated the current situation, he would have said something along the lines of "Stupid dirty Gotsumon. TAKE A SHOWER!" Given that he was now hanging from the arm of a flailing Gotsumon, this wasn't surprising.

_With Lekismon, Akira, Dan, and Arkadimon…_

Akira was just about to get hit when the words came to mind and went directly out her mouth before she could even think about it. "Akira biovolve to… Akira Lekismon Mode!" Truth be told the difference didn't seem useful. It just seemed like some of her hair was now sticking up like Lekismon's. As for the power difference, well…. "Moon Night Kick!" She shouted just in time to deliver a powerful kick to Dan's chin while he still couldn't punch her.

The tentacles dropped her as Dan collapsed on the ground. Akira, meanwhile, was just now landing on her feet after rotating through a full circle in the air. She stared at Dan as he spat what appeared to be blood. A loud buzzing filled the air.

"Pity, you were just starting to fight back. Now I have to leave before I can finish you off." He said nonchalantly. Using his tentacles to hoist himself into the air, he said "Digital Portal, preset destination: The Complex."

Arkadimon, upon hearing this, dropped the now unfrozen Lekismon he had been about to throw and joined Dan in the air next to the portal as they were converted to binary. As soon as the binary was gone, the Gotsumon that had been fighting everyone else looked up with what appeared to be sudden realization and stampeded directly towards Akira and Lekismon, away from what seemed to be buzzing. Akira and a somewhat dazed Lekismon looked at the Gotsumon, preparing to fight them off. They were unprepared to merely be run over, and a cloud of data flew upward as the two reverted to Lunamon and a normal Akira.

_  
Back with the others…._

Kyle was stunned. The Gotsumon seemed afraid. And they definitely knew the area better. "Guys, maybe we should consider running." He said shortly before a massive gust of wind forced everyone to cover their eyes from the flying grains of sand. And that buzzing was getting louder, now that he thought of it. He turned in the direction the wind had gusted from and stared into the distance. There was something flying out there at a high speed. And it was coming towards them. His eyes widened momentarily before squinting again as another gust blew through, carrying with it more sand and a voice saying something about a desert storm.

"Maybe we should run." Gaomon agreed before grabbing Jeff and dragging the teen in the opposite direction. How Gaomon kept that tight a grip through the boxing gloves defied all logic.

Everyone else seemed to take their cue from this. Kyle and Leormon were bring up the rear by the time they reached Akira and Lunamon and Kyle quickly grabbed Akira. "Get Lunamon." He said to Leormon, who picked up the rabbit-like digimon with his mouth and slung her over his back. That small act made a big difference in who the incoming digimon hit.

As it got closer, Kyle looked back and in the back of his head identified it as a SandYanmamon. Further forward, he noted that it was going to run into him.

"Flying Breaker!" it shouted as it crashed head on into Kyle. As the teen crashed to the ground, he barely managed to not land on Akira.

"That'll hurt in the morning." He muttered as Leormon laid Lunamon on the ground. "Leo Claw!"

Somehow he didn't think the SandYanmamon would stay low enough for him to hit it. It did however send a withering blast of sand at him while shouting "Desert Storm!"

"That's why the wind was so bad." He muttered under his breath. The others were too far away to help. And he couldn't even hit the thing. "This sucks-" He found himself cut off as Leormon finished for him.

"-balls. Leo Claw!" The lion cub digimon jumped into the air (an astonishing sight for those who've never seen it) and swiped at the flying insect, which nimbly floated out of the way.

"Bottom Cutter!" It yelled before flying right under Leormon and slicing him with its wings. It didn't stop there though, but continued on towards Kyle.

"Oh, you bitch." Leormon said as Dan's cell-phone-digivice glowed white. "Leormon digivolve to… Liomon!" The small patch of hair on Leormon's head became a massive unkempt mane on Liomon, who was about three times the size with a couple piercings. "Thunder of the Kings!" Liomon roared, shaking his new mane. Oddly enough, lightning shot out from his mane and made a direct hit on SandYanmamon. A closer look at the mane previously would've revealed that it eternally coursed with enough static electricity to generate such a lightning bolt, except when Liomon didn't want it to.

Back to the fight itself, SandYanmamon went slightly off course when it was hit, but still managed to graze Kyle with its wing. "You mofo, that hurt!" Kyle shouted as the phone glowed white again. His hair grew into a shockingly disheveled mess that went from its former length of about halfway down his ears to a new length that would've reached to his shoulders if it were straightened. "Kikinakasoki biovolve to… Kikinakasoki Liomon Mode! Thunder of the Kings!"

Temporarily breaking fourth wall, let us shoot the author for the pun he made about Kyle Liomon Mode's hair. -shot-

And once again repairing that vital wall, we return to find Kyle and Liomon repeatedly showering SandYanmamon with lightning bolts. The poor thing never stood a chance once they were both at the Champion level. And so it was that it dissolved into data particles just as Akira and Lunamon managed to wake up and the mystic spire turned white.

A short ride on Liomon later, the others were vigorously scolded for leaving Akira and Lunamon behind and were forced to run all the way back to the spire while Liomon and Kyle shot much smaller and less lethal lightning bolts at them. The shouts from Felicia involving the words "Just you wait! OW!" were heard for miles around.

**End A/N: **Well, I think this chapter is my record word-count as well. I'd celebrate, but I'm busy with starting the prologue for Digital Demons, my very well planned out in comparison sequal to this story. So watch for it, and if you come across it… be prepared for spoilers if you read it. MASSIVE spoilers.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N:** Blah, this chapter was slightly more of a pain in the ass than expected. Mainly due to not having internet access (which I still don't have back) while I was writing it so I had to go find attack names and what they did at the local library, as the school library blocks the digimon wiki I use. One of these days I need to figure out how to get past their restricitions, I know some people who know how…. Anyways, I finally came up with a better way to refer to the digivices/cellphones. D-Phones. Also, you know how a couple chapters ago we introduced the Gaomon-Bearmon side-plot? It CONTINUES! And we have some foreshadowing littered in a couple spots throughout the chapter, some of it probably unintentional because of how often I think about WAY too far in advance. If you read the character files in my profile (SPOILERS ABOUND IN THOSE) you might guess something about something…. –falls asleep, as it is half past midnight as he writes this A/N– 

Wayne: Excuse the disclaimer as well, Ikaru is in Theatre class and they're working on scenes for a Shakespeare festival. As such, he felt the urge to write in Iambic Pentameter without making a whole chapter out of it (which was his original idea).

**Disclaimer:** Usually this would be

In prose. But I decided to make it

In Iambic Pentameter. Hooray!

Shakespeare was such a genius, wasn't he?

No, but really, I don't own Digimon.

**Chapter Ten: Ghost Stories**

_23:45DST/Wendigo Plains/Mythic Spire #3_

A digimon howled in the distance as Wayne, Jeff, Kyle, Akira, and Felicia and their partners except for Labramon and Gaomon sat around a campfire. Labramon was lying down and staring across the circle at Gaomon. Gaomon was telling a ghost story.

"They say these plains are haunted by evil digimon that eat the flesh of other digimon. They're called Wendigomon, hence the name of the plains. If I were you, I'd be scared of the howl we just heard. Legend has it that Wendigomon always howl like that when the catch the scent of a meal."

"What does it look like?" Felicia asked, already entranced by the idea. She sincerely doubted that Gaomon's legend was true.

"Well, they're tall and brown. They wear a white skull as a hat, and their arms go down to their ankles. They have spikes growing from their shoulders, and the older ones have white bandage wrapped around their left wrist. The older ones are also more powerful." He paused again and sniffed the air briefly before continuing with his story. "The legend begins many years ago, supposedly when a human first put up the story of Wendigos in the real world. A young Mikemon was crossing the plains from the Yanma Desert on his way to the beach. It was around midnight, and the Mikemon decided to stop by a tower for the night. He built a fire and leaned against the tower, staring off into the night. He was half asleep when he first heard the howl. He shrugged it off, figuring it was just a Garurumon. For the humans amongst us, let me clarify that Garurumon are typically very nice creatures that give out rides to smaller digimon on occasion, and happen to be notorious for howling at the moon. He settled down and began to nod off again. Minutes later, he heard the howl again. It was much closer than before. Beginning to be a little more concerned, he glanced up at the sky. The moon wasn't out that night, quite similar to tonight." He pointed up into the sky, where it was in fact so cloudy that the moon could not be seen. The digimon howled in the distance again. It was closer. Gaomon sniffed the air discreetly while the others shivered and glanced around. He smelled something odd, but he wasn't sure what. It was too faint.

"As I was saying, the Mikemon was scared. Insomnia had seized the cat, and now Mikemon stared out around himself in fear, the tower at his back. It wasn't long before he began to smell something horrible. Shortly afterwards, he heard the third howl, seemingly from just the opposite side of the tower. He turned around to find himself face to face with Wendigomon. As the beast lunged towards him, Mikemon realized that the smell was Wendigomon's breath. He later compared it to the smell of an infected wound, or rotting fish. The smell of decay. Mikemon leaped away from Wendigomon only to be caught be his tail. Struggling against his captor, Mikemon soon lost an arm to Wendigmon's endless hunger. Using his remaining arm, Mikemon punched Wendigomon hard enough to get let go. He began running west, towards Digitropolis. Wendigomon followed him. At the time, Digitropolis was little more than a cluster of huts, but it was revered all around because Yggdrasil had supposedly blessed it. And so Mikemon ran towards the closest place he could think of where he could be helped. As it was, he was just barely out of Wendigomon's reach. He got lucky when he came upon a Garurumon that had been on its way to Digitropolis. The Garurumon was sleeping, but Mikemon managed to yell loud enough to wake it up. The groggy Garurumon soon came to his senses and dashed to the Mikemon, picked it up, and ran off towards Digitropolis at top speed. The Wendigomon was nowhere near as fast as Garurumon, and the pair made it to Digitropolis just after dawn, Wendigomon far behind them. They told their story to the locals, and received much hospitality. Mikemon's arm never came back, even after he de-digivolved to Salamon. To this day, some say you can find a one-armed Holydramon in Digitropolis if you look hard enough, and if you ask it, it may tell you of the events that night."

"What's a Holydramon?" One of the humans asked. Let's not bother specifying.

"Masculine Magnadramon." Replied an unspecified digimon.

The same human was about to ask what the difference was when Gaomon shushed everyone and began sniffing the air frantically. His eyes widened just as they heard the third howl. He'd been smelling decay. No one else had noticed because of the fire, but now they began sniffing too. Gaomon muttered briefly "Leormon, Lunamon, digivolve." For his part, Gaomon was busy staring past Labramon at the spire. Or rather, what was standing in front of the spire about to grab Labramon. Tall, brown, white skull for a hat, and arms that reached its ankles. A Wendigomon. He fearfully noted the white bandages on the Wendigomon's left wrist.

Pity them, because Leormon and Lunamon looked at what Gaomon was staring at before they digivolved. That one second meant a much more difficult battle.

"Lunamon digivolve to… Lekismon!"

"Leormon digivolve to… Liomon!"

"Akira biovolve to… Akira Lekismon Mode!"

"Kikinakasoki biovolve to… Kikinakasoki Liomon Mode!"

Cue chaos.

Shouts of "Thunder of the Kings!" and "Moon Night Bomb!" filled the air as the non-champions in the group began to back away. Well, aside from Gaomon and Jeff, who ran in to get Labramon out of there before running over to the others.

Returning to the chaos, Wendigomon was actually batting away their attacks with its bare hands. The beast was apparently much stronger than it's rank as a Champion level digimon let on. Of course, Akira, Kyle, Liomon, and Lekismon didn't need to see their attacks being batted away to know the Wendigomon was powerful. Oh no, they just needed to see what happened when the beast shouted "Howling Destroyer!"

Well, and they had to feel it too. After all, when six cannons pop out of your opponent's chest and you don't expect it, there isn't much time to dodge the energy bullets that follow. Akira and Kyle were sent flying backwards as they de-biovolved while Liomon and Lekismon slammed into their partners arms after being sent back to Frimon and Moonmon. 

"We're screwed." Felicia said.

Meanwhile, Gaomon was once again sniffing the air, grimacing as he did so. It was obvious that he wasn't paying attention to Wendigomon, and as such when the champion shouted "Club Arm!" he was quite surprised and didn't move out of the way. He cringed as Wendigomon's arm extended towards him and Jeff and made a sweeping motion.

Then the entirely unexpected happened. "Idiot! Maul Attack!"

Gaomon glanced up just in time to see a bear-like digimon mauling the arm and pushing it in the opposite direction. A Grizzlymon, if he remembered correctly. Recognition flared in his eyes as a strange symbol flashed unnoticed on Jeff's D-Phone. Gaomon glowed white with the light of digivolution as the symbol disappeared from the D-Phone and the screen began glowing the normal white color from the digivolution.

"Gaomon digivolve to… Gaogamon!" Standing in Gaomon's place was a much larger version of him, standing on all fours with claws coming out of the boxing gloves, which remained on the two front feet for some reason. The red headband had now become a scarf with both ends flapping in a nonexistent wind behind Gaogamon. Gaogamon immediately jumped forward and roared "Dash Double Claw!"

Instead of heading towards Wendigomon though, he slashed at Grizzlymon. Grizzlymon immediately turned towards the Wendigomon, which was now clutching a badly mauled wrist, shouted "Crescent Moon!" while shooting an energy beam in the shape of a crescent moon at Wendigomon, and then managed to backhand (backforepaw?) Gaogamon. "Save it for later, your partner and his friends are in trouble." The bear digimon growled quietly, so only Gaogamon could hear it. Grizzlymon turned and fired another energy beam at Wendigomon before jumping out of the way of the energy bullet barrage it launched in retaliation.

Gaogamon merely looked confused for a few seconds as he jumped out of the way before turning towards Wendigomon and shouting "Spiral Blow!" A tornado shot out of Gaogamon's mouth and slammed into Wendigomon.

"Club Arm!" The beast shouted, only to have that wrist viciously mauled by Grizzlymon as well. It was down to the energy bullets now. "Howling Destroyer!"

As the energy bullets flew at him, Gaogamon briefly wondered what would happen if one of them ended up going into one of the cannons in Wendigomon's chest. Deciding that it might explode, he didn't jump out of the way. Instead, he shouted "Spiral Blow!" and deflected the bullets back at Wendigomon along with a nice tornado. A couple of the bullets went into the chest cannons, but most merely hit Wendigomon's actual chest. But then again, only a couple were necessary, as proven when Wendigomon literally blew up into thousands of tiny data particles that slowly dissolved.

Jeff and everyone else moved to go congratulate Gaogamon as the spire, which they would have noticed was black had they arrived during the day, turned white. But Gaogamon was instead running after the Grizzlymon. Raised eyebrows ensued, as Jeff became the center of a circle of accusing looks.

_Time Irrelevant/Unknown Location in the Digital World_

Meanwhile, an epic battle had already begun. Standing on one rocky spire was Gaogamon. On another stood Grizzlymon. There was nothing special about the spires except for their sheer height and durability. The spires were roughly the same height and stood so far above ground that distance couldn't be accurately judged.

Not that it mattered to the two combatants, who launched across the gap at each other for what could've been the hundredth time or the thousandth time. Both were covered in blood, burns, and slash marks. They panted heavily as they landed on the opposite spires; new sets of slash marks abundant on both of them. Turning slowly around, they moved to jump across again, but Grizzlymon tripped over his own paw and fell into the open air while Gaogamon merely collapsed on the spire, too tired to move.

It was quite a few hours later, or so it seemed, when Gaogamon stood up apparently entirely healed and ran off, back to the Wendigo Plains.

Down at the bases of the spires, a small digimon resembling a teddy bear awoke, digivolved into a Bearmon, and began walking off to another location.

_00:47DST/Wendigo Plains/Mythic Spire #3_

Gaogamon ran back to the group apparently moments after he had left. He muttered "Long story," and accepted their congratulations for a while before de-digivolving back to Gaomon and falling into a deep sleep on the spot. Taking this as their cue to do the same, everyone else fell asleep on the spot as well; Lunamon and Leormon having digivolved back to Rookie during Gaogamon's brief absence.

_00:47DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's room_

All the while, Dan and Arkadimon slept soundly in their beds (or chair, in Arkadimon's case. He refused, nonverbally of course, to de-digivolve to In-Training so he could sleep). They knew nothing about what had happened that night, nor would they care when BlackAgumon informed them of it in the cafeteria the next morning. After all, soon enough they would reach Ultimate, and then they would _really_ kick the other Digidestined's collective butt.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Oh joy

**A/N:** Before anyone makes any guesses about whether it's Wayne and Coronamon or Felicia and Labramon who digivolve in this episode, allow me to assure you all that neither of them does. –sticks his tongue out at the readers– Instead, we get to delve into some characterization, plot points, mysteries, foreshadowing, and even a bit of prophecy. And we get some digital world history as well! We even bring in some future characters!

Oh, and a note about time zones in this digital world: They don't exist. While I have yet to explain this logically to myself aside from the fact that it's so much easier (-gags in remembrance of trying to figure out the time differences between Tokyo and various parts of the US-), suffice to say that I'll eventually blame it on some side character of minimal importance to the actual plot.

**Disclaimer:**

Disclaimermon: Hello everyone, I'm Disclaimermon. I'm an ultimate level data attribute digimon of the artificial family. My attack is Disclaim. With it, I can change reality with warnings about things or mere disclaimers, such as if I say "watch out of that cliff" there will suddenly be a cliff where I gesture, and if I say "Juan does not own an iPod" then Juan will cease to own any iPods he may have. I'm here today to say one thing:

"Disclaim: Ikaru Kakou does not own Digimon, nor does he own any other trademarked things."

Ikaru: That's a lot of colons….

**Chapter Eleven: Temple of Adminmon**

_10:23DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/Edge of Wendigo Plains._

"Remind me again why we didn't just google the real world?" Kyle asked, collapsing at the edge of the trees.

"Because we didn't think about that option?" Wayne suggested.

"And because we're busy saving the digital world." Jeff replied.

"Exactly why do we need to save it, anyway? All it's done for us is cause us to set out on a journey with no supplies of any sort and cause us to not get nearly enough sleep at night." Kyle grabbed a piece of fruit lying on the ground that he guessed had fallen from one of the trees. Having no idea what the heck it was, or if it was poisonous or not, he bit into it and savored the sweet juice.

"Well, aside from the whole 'it's the right thing to do' thing…." Wayne paused and took a bite out of another one of the fruits. "I guess if Hadesdramon takes over here the real world is his next logical step, right?" He took another bite before muttering just loud enough so Jeff and Kyle could hear it, "This would be really good roasted."

Perhaps it would be prudent to mention the three of them had decided to have a race to the jungle's edge. At the moment, Felicia, Akira, and the digimon were walking up.

"What are you all talking about?" Felicia asked, sitting down in the shade near Kyle, Labramon lying down next to her.

"Nothing. Coro-" Wayne said, deciding to roast the fruit.

"DON'T!" Coronamon yelled, interrupting Wayne too late to stop the inevitable.

"-knuckle. Don't what?" Wayne asked before, upon his hand catching fire, the fruit exploded violently, spraying flaming mush and seeds everywhere, and also burning off Wayne's eyebrows.

"Well, aside from the explosion, you were right about roasting it." Kyle said, wiping some of the already cooling mush off of his face with a finger and tasting it.

"Adminfruit is highly explosive." Coronamon said with a sigh.

_Several minutes of clean up, eating, and one Cure Liquor later_

"Now the we know not to burn the Adminfruit, can we get going now?" Jeff said, leading the way into the jungle. Gaomon wasn't far behind, apparently just as eager to proceed.

"I still don't get why you insist on calling it Adminfruit when the Church of Yggdrasil has made it clear that the proper name is Explosafruit." Labramon said, joining the two. Everyone else seemed to be up and walking now as well.

"Well," Coronamon began, "Just because that stupid church doesn't like that it's named after Adminmon is no reason for them to change the name. Besides, I find it sort of fitting. Cult god of the apocalypse, explosive fruit. It makes sense."

"You don't worship Adminmon, do you?" Gaomon asked, tensing slightly. Both of the dog digimon in the group were devout followers of Yggdrasil. He kept walking.

"No. If I did the Church would've deleted and absorbed me by now. You have to remember; the Cult of Adminmon got run off of the continent, Gaomon. And I've never left the continent except for being in the Real World." Coronamon countered. And so began a journey into the jungle, filled with heated religious debate (Coronamon and Leormon seemed to be Christian, while Lunamon was either atheist and knowledgeable about Shinto beliefs, or just plain Shinto).

_15:45DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/Ruins of the Temple of Adminmon_

The five digimon let out a unanimous gasp as they entered the large clearing. A temple to Adminmon stood there, built out of stone. How did they know it was Adminmon? Because of the broken statues lying on the ground. The image upon them was unmistakably that of Adminmon, an image they had all been taught to fear since they were at the baby level. Lunamon even shivered.

"What is it?" Felicia asked as she caught up with the digimon.

"The ruins of a temple to Adminmon. Perhaps THE temple to him, judging by the fact that the main temple still stands." Gaomon said, his voice filled with fear. Even if it had been over a century since it was ruined, a temple to Adminmon was always considered a dangerous place to be if you didn't worship the god. Bad things happened. Like the time a human had gone to one and never returned.

"There's a Mythic Spire on top of the temple." Jeff pointed out. Now all the digimon shivered.

"Make that definitely THE temple to him." Gaomon said, now slowly backing away. A quick glance upwards revealed that the spire was indeed black. Not surprising, really.

"What could be so bad about some guy in a business suit?" Akira asked, poking one of the statues. Lunamon appeared to be on the verge of answering when suddenly a voice rang out from the entrance to the main temple.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT! I STILL HAVEN'T DECIPHERED THE PROPHECY ON IT!" The five humans and their partners all turned to see a Wisemon standing there.

"Prophecy?" Wayne asked shakily, now backing away with everyone else. No one wanted to deal with an angry Ultimate level.

"No one ever told you that The Temple of Adminmon was covered in prophecies written by Prophecymon himself?" The Wisemon asked, apparently curious now.

Labramon paused. "No. But no one would be able to read them anyway, Prophecymon only wrote in Digicode." She stopped backing away. She suddenly remembered that Wisemon typically weren't good or evil, and if they did choose a side it was that of good.

"Wisemon can." The Wisemon said. "Care to join me, Digidestined? You'll be perfectly safe, I use my Pandora Dialogue every few minutes or so to prevent anything bad from happening."

"Which prophecy mentioned us?" Kyle asked.

"A couple vague ones on the second floor. Those weren't how I knew you were Digidestined, though. I just seem to have had certain information born into me since I first popped into existence."

"I don't trust him." Kyle whispered, dragging the group into a huddle.

"I do. He's a Wisemon, he won't hurt Digidestined." Labramon said.

"What makes you say that?" Gaomon asked.

"The old storyteller in Digitropolis was a Wisemon. We were instructed in such things as what digimon will attack what. Strangely enough, Coronamon and Lunamon lines will never attack each other. But that's a different story."

"Fine. We'll trust him. For now." Kyle said before standing up straight. "I see…. Well, we do have to take care of that spire anyway." He added loud enough for Wisemon to hear.

"Very well. We shall make our way to the roof then. There's no guardian digimon there at the moment though, I'm afraid it got changed recently. You'll have to provoke the spire to get it here." The Wisemon said nonchalantly. He headed back into the temple, now followed by the Digidestined and their partners.

_16:03DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's room_

Dan raised an eyebrow at Arkadimon. A spire that had been black for a while had detected the other Digidestined near it. Opening the satellite feed, he waited for the others to all enter the temple. And then he opened the portal to the spire, going through it with Arkadimon. They would wait atop the temple in Champion form.

_16:02DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/The Temple of Adminmon/Second Floor_

Wayne raised his eyebrow as the Wisemon stopped. "This wouldn't happen to be where one of those prophecies is, is it?" He asked

"It is." Wisemon said dismissively as he traced his finger along the runes of Digicode that made up the prophecy. "It's confusing. 'The glitched Digidestined shall rejoin humanity twice, once in one world, again many years later in another.' I have trouble figuring out who this glitched one is, as none of you is glitched, nor is the one who is not with you."

"The other one?" Felicia asked.

"The one who works against you for the moment."

"DAN is a Digidestined?!" Kyle asked.

"Yes, if he is the partner of the single-namer."

"Holy crap."

"In any case though, the problem is the implication that one of you will become glitched, or that there is another Digidestined I do not know of who is glitched."

Wayne stood quietly for a second. "Define glitched." He finally said.

"The Digital World is a computer program from the Real World. A very complex, powerful, and sentient one, but a computer program all the same. There's occasional glitches in the programming that manifest in different ways. For instance, Hadesdramon's ability to move freely between this world and the Dark Realm is a glitch. Hadesdramon himself could be considered a glitch, but few people would wish to believe someone so evil is the result of a mere glitch."

"Are there other glitches?" Akira asked

"Rumor has it that the human who disappeared here was murdered by a digimon who had come with him because the digimon had been glitched."

"I was always told the human came alone." Gaomon said.

"There was a GrapLeomon seen leaving, was there not?"

"Let's just keep going. We have a spire to provoke." Jeff said. And so they moved on.

_16:42DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/The Temple of Adminmon/Top Floor_

Wisemon had led them to the top floor safely. And they now stood at the base of the ladder that led to the trap door onto the roof. Wisemon had ordered them to stop for a bit before going up. Being an Ultimate, his logic was not disputed. Still, Wisemon were typically peaceful. Which would explain everyone's utter shock when Wisemon suddenly said something.

"_**Pandora Dialogue: A thunderstorm shall strike down our foes with lightning.**_" The voice had a strange echoing quality, and it seemed as if reality itself was bending as Wisemon spoke. And then they heard the thunder and the rain. "We have between two and five minutes." The Ultimate added in his normal, non-reality-bending, voice.

The Digidestined raised their eyebrows in unison before starting up the ladder. The first one out was a very surprised Lunamon. She seemed to digivolve while jumping straight into the air, only to be whipped to the side by the tentacle of an Arkadimon Champion. Specifically, Dan's partner. The other Digidestined rushed up the ladder while Lekismon had Arkadimon busy.

"Did you really think it would be that easy?" Dan said rhetorically as his own tentacles emerged.

"Actually, I kinda did." Akira said, now biovolved and in the air above Dan. "Moon Night Kick!" She shouted as she preformed a circular kick in mid-air. Unfortunately, she was caught by the foot by one of Dan's tentacles just before she hit Dan's head.

"Silly rabbit, tricks are-" Dan began, preparing to throw her.

"-for kids." Akira finished. "Moon Night Bomb!" She shouted, blasting Arkadimon with a highly condensed ball of water, the kickback of the blast sending her out of Dan's grip. "How stereotypical of me." She added shortly before saying "Tear Arrow!" And firing an arrow made of ice at Dan.

"Indeed." Dan said, smacking the arrow out of the way with his tentacles. "Prison Fist." He said, collecting the tentacle into a fist shape now and slugging Akira and Lekismon with it in succession. The two both froze and appeared slightly pixilated.

"Bastard." Jeff said, also biovolved along with Kyle. Gaomon and Leormon appeared to be digivolved. "Spiral Blow!" The whirlwinds summoned by Jeff and Gaomon soon faced the same fate as Akira and Lekismon, shortly followed by Jeff and Gaomon themselves. Arkadimon was now flying above the spire with tentacle fists as well, and he had been the one to freeze the newest two. Kyle and Leormon barely had time to statically charge their manes before being taken out.

"Anyone else?" Dan asked, glancing around. Wayne and Felicia stood still, their digivices not glowing at all. They suspected Coronamon and Labramon wouldn't be digivolving today. They wouldn't be. Instead….

"Eight Balls of Lust!" Wisemon shouted, suddenly appearing above the trap door. Eight steel balls flew from Wisemon's sleeves and began to pound Dan. The boy didn't stand a chance. And then his digivice began to glow, and Arkadimon let loose a feral roar.

Flying where Arkadimon Champion had been moments before, was Arkadimon Ultimate. A scary sight for everyone who wasn't frozen, including Dan who had now been forced back down to his normal level.

"Eight Balls of Lust!" Wisemon shouted again, almost too calmly. Another eight steel balls flew from his sleeves and began pounding Arkadimon Ultimate. And then there was a blinding flash, followed by a wave of sound and air that hurled Wisemon, Wayne, Coronamon, Felicia, Labramon, and the frozen Digidestined to the edge of the roof. A bellow of pain along with an inhuman scream were just barely distinguishable.

When the light blindness was gone, there was nothing left but data that was beginning to disintigrate. And then a portal opened out of nowhere and a clawed hand stuck through. After a brief gesture, the data condensed into two eggs that the hand then pulled through the portal. The Digidestined could only stare as the spire turned white.

_17:04DST/Dark Realm/Unknown Location_

Seven figures gathered around a table. Built into the table was a video screen displaying another shadowy figure, while on the table itself stood the two eggs and an odd digimon that seemed to be made of a living shadow with yellow eyes.

"Are you sure, Hadesdramon?" One of the seven asked.

"Yes. The boy was afraid there. The darkness will be necessary for him to remain useful." The figure on the video said.

"Very well." The one who had asked said. He turned to the digimon on the table. "Do it."

"Dark Scale." The digimon said, two black scales shooting into the eggs, which were then sent through a portal back to The Complex. The video feed was then cut, and the table began to display three maps. The seven figures all slumped in their chairs, and a measure of darkness escaped from the digimon on the table into the seven before the digimon reverted to a small skeleton-like creature that vanished in a puff of dark smoke.

**End A/N: **Also, I'd like to apologize for this chapter being so late. I've been working shift crew for a musical at my school, and that's been really mentally draining, and therefore counter-creative. So my writing wasn't getting done. The musical is over now though, so updates SHOULD be more frequent. Also, this may be a little late due to my computer's internet access being taken away again earlier tonight (May Tenth). But I never write End A/Ns until after I finish the chapter, so now you know when it was finished.

Also, any guesses as to who the seven figures are should not be posted in reviews. I have a few reviewers who don't read Digital Demons, and you'll ruin it for them if you reveal it in a review. Go ahead and guess in a private message though. Other than that, reviews are as always wide open. Any questions, I'll answer them to the best of my ability. Although….

Disclaimermon: Disclaim: Ikaru Kakou will not reveal plot points that have not been already made public in review replies. So if your review reply asks a question he skips over or doesn't really answer, the answer is a plot point. Or he was just lazy.


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N:** So this chapter has been a pain in the ass to write for many reasons. At first, it was just being difficult. THEN my computer died and I didn't have any of my files backed up (Luckily I'd recently sent all of my stuff from this story to a friend over MSN and was able to salvage what was written so far of this chapter). THEN the computer I can use now doesn't have Microsoft Word, which makes writing a pain in the ass in general, AND I like doing wordcounts and Firefox doesn't have a word count feature for my version yet (It's in beta testing and I can't download it).

So you can all thank Shiguya Retomasi for salvaging this chapter for me.

**Disclaimer:** I had something really awesome to put here, but I lost it. So, uh... I don't own Digimon.

**Chapter Twelve: A Wise Mentor and a Chibi**

_17:09DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/The Temple of Adminmon/Roof_

Kyle groaned as he began moving again. Had he been in a joking mood before being frozen, he would have said something about pitying computers that froze up. He had been in a battle mood though, so the first words out of his mouth were "Is it over?"

Gaomon, who happened to be just getting over the Prison Fist himself, mumbled "Yeah. We won." The dog digimon was rubbing his shoulder. Typically a bad sign, you weren't supposed to feel pain in a specific area after de-digivolving.

"Barely. Arkadimon digivolved shortly before my lightning bolt struck them, if it had struck any later I wouldn't have been able to hold him off." Wisemon added. He, like the other four who hadn't been frozen when the lightning struck, was rubbing his eyes with one hand while massaging his ears with the other.

"You guys got off lucky. Labramon is still having trouble hearing, and it's been over ten minutes." Felicia said.

"Huh?" Labramon asked, proving Felicia's point.

"Great," Leormon said, "We have six people who're still stiff from being frozen, and five who may as well be deaf and blind for the time being."

"Didn't catch that last bit." Wayne said.

"Exactly." Leormon replied. And so it was that Wisemon and the Digidestined sat there on top of the Temple of Adminmon for yet another hour before any of them felt up to traveling.

_18:12DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/In flight over the treetops_

When everyone was up for traveling, it turned out that Wisemon was still capable of using his Eight Balls of Lust attack eleven times to carry them all out over the jungle and to Sand Beach.

As they flew, the Digidestined decided to play some Q and A with Wisemon.

"So, uh, you mentioned earlier that you 'popped into existence'." Kyle began.

"Unlike most digimon, I was not born from a digiegg, nor did I progress to this level. Instead, I simply appeared atop the temple there one day at this level."

"And you just knew stuff immediately?" Akira asked.

"Well, some things. Other things came in time. I would be reading a prophecy and suddenly come across something I didn't know about, and then I'd wonder what it was for a few minutes and then I'd just know the information as if I'd remembered something."

"Most Wisemon don't typically come into their wisdom that way." Lunamon said.

"No, they typically don't." Wisemon paused for a second. He seemed to be remembering something. As he did so, his hand pixilated briefly. No one noticed it, and he soon added, "Typically Wisemon are wise before they're Wisemon, aren't they?"

"Yes." Labramon replied slowly. Silence followed for a while before Labramon asked, "You said you knew of the Digidestined from the moment you appeared. What exactly did you know?"

"There's six humans who were called to the digital world shortly after meeting digimon partners in the real world. The partners are bonded to each other in inexplicable ways, or at least ways that are inexplicable to those without a profound understanding of the physics behind it, and one of the humans arrived either one day or almost four years before the other five. The memory isn't clear on which one for some reason, which is odd considering the extreme time difference between the two options."

"Anything else?" Wayne asked.

"Well, they've all met Shiguya, and they're supposed to eventually defeat Hadesdramon."

"And that wasn't from a prophecy?"

"That was the reason they were called to the digital world by-" Wisemon cut off here as if he had been about to say something and was suddenly incapable of saying it. "By whoever it was that called them here." He eventually finished.

"And you know of Shiguya?" Felicia asked.

"He lives just three mythic spires away from here. He used to visit me sometimes." Wisemon said.

"And, out of curiosity, why are you coming with us?"

"Going to visit Shiguya. Finished deciphering most of the prophecies, nothing better to do." After this there was silence for a while. Not much else to ask. And then, suddenly...

"Blasphemers!" The shout came from under the canopy, and it sounded as if whoever said it had been shouting it for a while. Everyone turned around to see a Tapirmon floating up through the canopy.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Blasphemers! Trespassing in the most holy of temples!" The Tapir shouted.

"I'll deal with it." Lunamon said to the others shortly before digivolving to Lekismon. "Moon Night Kick!" Lekismon jumped out of the steel balls that had been flying her above the canopy and did a flip in the air before kicking the Tapirmon far into the jungle. The balls she had been riding on caught her as she de-digivolved into Lunamon again.

And so your author just added a couple hundred words to this chapter without accomplishing anything other than showing how kickass Lekismon is.

Later...

_19:32DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mythic Spire #5_

Once they got to the beach, they landed and Wisemon's spheres disappeared. It seemed relatively quiet for having a black spire. Wisemon seemed to be rather impatient. "I'll go on. You guys should be able to handle things without me for a while, right?" He asked

"Yeah, we'll be fine." Wayne said as he leaned against the spire. Also leaning on the spire with him were Jeff, Kyle, and Akira. The three nodded.

Wisemon nodded as well. "OK. See you all soon." With that, the Ultimate digimon walked off in what they assumed was the direction of the next spire. And so the night progressed. Eventually driftwood was gathered and lit for a bonfire using Coronamon's Corona Flame attack. The digidestined gathered around the fire in wait.

When they first heard the wolf howling, they dismissed it as being rather far off.

_23:14DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mythic Spire #5_

Felicia woke with a start when the wolf howled again. This was the fourth time so far, and once again it sounded closer. She shivered a bit before muttering "This is eerily similar to Wendigo Plains." A few minutes later, she fell asleep again.

_4:32DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mystic Spire #5_

The wolf hadn't howled since Felicia mentioned how similar it was to Wendigo Plains, but now she woke up to the sound of Akira screaming in pain as she was bombarded with thousands of tiny blades. Felicia looked around groggily to see everyone else looking around in confusion. Soon afterward Akira collapsed back on the sand, severely weakened, only for Lunamon to be hit and de-digivolved to Moonmon.

By this time everyone was now wide awake and staring around for the source of the danger. It wasn't long before Kyle was hit, and then Leormon, Jeff, and Gaomon. Those who were hit all collapsed on the sand, unable to get up.

Felicia glanced at Labramon, Wayne, and Coronamon."This doesn't look too good." She said before instinct told her to jump to the left. She made it out of the way just as another blast of blades shot out from where her shadow had just been. The blast came from what appeared to be another blob of shadow, with nothing to cast it. "What is that?" She asked, pointing at the blob before noting it was rushing back into her shadow. She dodged away again just in time to avoid yet another blast of blades.

"I wish I knew." Wayne replied, only for the blob to head into his shadow and strike him down. Coronamon followed soon afterwards.

"Shit."

_4:34DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's room_

Dan woke up in pain all over, but more specifically with a massive headache. "Fucking Wisemon. How the hell did I get back?"

"You were deleted, Hadesdramon brought your data into a digiegg and brought it back here. It only hatched a few hours ago." The voice was unmistakeably BlackAgumon's, and there seemed to be some restrained laughter involved.

"Sure. That sounds wonderful. Explains the pain." Dan sat up regardless of the pain and saw BlackAgumon standing in front of the mirror, most definitely restraining some laughter. Oddly enough, he could see none of his own reflection. "What are you laughing at?"

BlackAgumon merely stopped restraining the laughter and stepped out of the way of the mirror. Dan gazed into it, blinking a few times before it hit him. When it did, his voice contorted into a hilariously angry mask. Hilarious, because, well, we'll let Dan explain.

"I'M A FUCKING CHIBI?!"


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N:** Blargle. This story is SO much harder to write than its sequel. And it disappoints me how short the chapters get. Still, for some reason writing from Dan's point of view is just so much fun. Pity I can't use him next chapter, and possibly the one after that. On a side note, the chapter title is absolute crap, but I can't be assed to make another one, and the chapter itself is shorter than I'd like, probably because I split the Mystic Spire #5 battle.

**Disclaimer: **Me? Owning Digimon? SOMEONE needs to lay off the crack….

**Chapter Thirteen: Dawn/Anger**

_4:42DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Spire/Mystic Spire #5_

Felicia gasped for air as once again she rolled out of the way of the series of blades flung from her shadow at her. For the past ten minutes, she'd been switching between contemplating what digimon could do such a thing, and dodging the blades. After this last attack, though, she found she had still been hit. There was a cut on her shoulder. Now, normally this would be where muttered a curse of some sort and got very angry. Instead, Felicia succumbed to the oddest thing she could've done at the time: she started thinking in French.

In order to fully understand how this could happen, one needs to realize that Felicia enjoyed learning languages, and having learned Spanish as a child, took French 1 and 2 in Middle School, and in her sophomore year of high school was now taking French 4 AP. Thinking in French was then of course quite easy for her. So, back to the present….

Felicia's first thought in French right now was '_Je saigne_,' meaning 'I'm bleeding'. This struck a chord in Felicia's knowledge of digimon. How? The word for blood in French was _sang_. There was a digimon that could go into its enemy's shadow and hurl blades at it called Sangloupmon. Having made the connection, Felicia muttered "_Naturellement!_" It all made sense now. She quickly dove out of the way of another one of Sangloupmon's blade attacks and then reached into her shadow before pulling out the blood wolf digimon. Growing Labramon's muzzle, she growled "Retribark!" A French textbook flew out of nowhere and smacked the Sangloupmon on the head as it was thrown back by the soundwaves.

"Sticker Blade!" The blood wolf cried in retaliation, only for Felicia to block the attack with the French book. It was around this time that the Digital World decided the sun should start rising, and a single ray of sunlight came up just level with the horizon. Felicia hurled the textbook to the side and began advancing on Sangloupmon, her digivice aglow. She felt somehow empowered by the sunlight just barely cresting the horizon now.

"Felicia Biovolve to: Felicia Seasarmon Mode!" She shouted, noting in the back of her mind that Labramon digivolved to Seasarmon as she biovolved. She could tell the Sangloupmon was scared when it hurled more blades at her. She smirked and yelled "Tiida Iya!" just in time for a shield made out of sunlight to appear and halt the blades. Seasarmon approached from behind and muttered "Sekkantou," launching a beam of concentrated sunlight at the Sangloupmon. Although the beam was relatively small, likely an effect of there being so little sunlight right now, Sangloupmon was a digimon highly affiliated with night. Even that little beam was enough to instantly delete the Sangloupmon as the sun continued to rise. Felicia just raised a golden eyebrow and sat down on the sand to watch the mystic spire turn white, the blinding light from the transformation reflecting off of the gold bracelets she found on her wrists in this form. As Seasarmon sat down next to her, she put her hands behind her and leaned back. It had been a long night, and she hoped there wouldn't be too much walking today.

After the spire finished putting on its show of turning white, she soon found herself falling asleep using the French book as a pillow.

_5:21DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's Room_

Dan was not amused. BlackAgumon had shut the door behind him when he left, and as a chibi, Dan could not reach the doorknob. To make matters worse, he found he couldn't make digital portals anymore, and he needed to go ask Hadesdramon what was happening. He was left with only one choice: jumping to try and reach the door knob. The sight seemed to amuse Arkadimon, who sat on the bad making an odd wheezing sound that Dan just knew was laughter.

Of course, it was a hilarious sight. Although Dan was jumping quite high for a chibi (which is indeed a lot higher than one might think), the doorknob remained just out of reach. Cursing his luck, he glanced around the room for something to aid him in getting the door open. Normally Arkadimon's In-Training form seemed to look like merely an overlarge insect, but right now it looked like a step stool. With a quick movement, Dan had pulled Arkadimon to where he had been previously jumping, hopped onto his partner, and from there managed to jump just high enough to grasp the doorknob with both hands. "Sorry about that!" He squeaked as he struggled to pull the door open.

After a few seconds of struggling, he had the door open enough to finish pulling it open from the floor. He hopped down, pushed it open just enough so he and Arkadimon could get through, and then stormed off through the hallways of The Complex looking for the R and D lab. The looks he received from the various digimon who served Hadesdramon as he walked down the halls angered him, and he glared at anyone who dared to laugh. Needless to say, glaring only made it worse.

As he strode through the automatic sliding doors of the lab, he forced himself to calm down. He made his way over to the virus Elecmon who had invented the device that gave him the ability to summon the portals. "I can't summon portals. I thought you said it would survive deletion."

"It did. It just got overloaded by a large current of electricity. Another shock should fix it, but I'll need to know what you got hit with." The purple and gold pain in the butt was smart enough to not mention Dan being a chibi.

"Lightning. A Wisemon's prediction, if I had to guess."

"Interesting…" The Elecmon turned to the computer next to him which was currently displaying a readout of the status of Dan's device. It was utter gibberish to Dan, but the Elecmon seemed to understand it. After a few seconds of studying the data, the Elecmon turned to Dan. "You'll feel a little pain, but it'll be like getting hit by a rookie's attack as a champion. Assassin's Bolt." A small blade of electricity jumped from the Elecmon to just behind Dan's ear.

"Ouch." Dan said before feeling the sudden reconnection of the device. "Digital Portal Open. Pre-set Destination: Hadesdramon's Lair." In a process that suddenly took longer than usual, Dan and Arkadimon were swept over by a beam that disassembled them into data that was then sucked through the portal and reassembled on the other side.

_6:14DST/Hadesdramon's Lair_

When Dan came out the other side of the portal, he was disappointed to find that he was still not back to normal. He stormed down the hallway, followed closely by Arkadimon, until he came to the actual lair. He approached the edge of the precipice the struck out over the volcanic crater Hadesdramon called home with the usual fearful respect, but this time there was an tinge of anger about it. "My lord." He said.

There was a rumbling from below and then suddenly a pair of red glowing eyes appeared in the shadows below. As always, a new wave of fear washed over Dan at the sight of the eyes. It was never the eyes themselves that did it, but always the thought of what the eyes were a part of. He had only actually seen Hadesdramon once, but the mega level dragon digimon was the sort of thing that gave little kids nightmares if you even mentioned his name after they'd seen him.

"Why do you wake me?" Hadesdramon rumbled.

"Surely you see my current form." Dan replied, gradually regaining his confidence and anger. "What happened? I need to know what has happened to me. Weakness is not something I will tolerate in myself."

"Ah, yes. Dan. I was expecting you to come to me, but not so soon. You show strength greater than I expected. Quite simply, you were deleted. This is a side-effect, unforeseen, but easily explainable. Surely it follows that if you can take on a Champion form, just as Arkadimon can, you can also take on an In-Training form, an Ultimate form, and even a Mega form if Arkadimon ever reached that level."

"So being deleted put me into this form?"

"Yes. And you get out of it the same way Arkadimon would get out of his In-Training form, I assume. The buildup of power." Dan could've sworn Hadesdramon was smirking there. The tone made it so obvious.

"And you can accelerate that, correct? I cannot remain like this."

Now Hadesdramon chuckled. "Accelerate it not a strong enough word. Darkworld Breath." Up from the crater following these last words came a cloud of dark smoke. It hovered briefly around Dan and Arkadimon, obscuring them. And then it began to thin, as though absorbed by the two. When it could be seen through again, Dan and Arkadimon stood there, Dan returned to normal, and Arkadimon at his Champion level now. Although neither one actually looked different, something about the way they stood screamed evil.

Hadesdramon's last words echoed around the chamber: "There is someone by the name of Shiguya who assists the other humans. Find and destroy him."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N:** So this chapter has been a pain in the ass to write for many reasons. At first, it was just being difficult. THEN my computer died and I didn't have any of my files backed up (Luckily I'd recently sent all of my stuff from this story to a friend over MSN and was able to salvage what was written so far of this chapter). THEN the computer I can use now doesn't have Microsoft Word, which makes writing a pain in the ass in general, AND I like doing wordcounts and Firefox doesn't have a word count feature for my version yet (It's in beta testing and I can't download it).

So you can all thank Shiguya Retomasi for salvaging this chapter for me.

**Disclaimer:** I had something really awesome to put here, but I lost it. So, uh... I don't own Digimon.

**Chapter Twelve: A Wise Mentor and a Chibi**

_17:09DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/The Temple of Adminmon/Roof_

Kyle groaned as he began moving again. Had he been in a joking mood before being frozen, he would have said something about pitying computers that froze up. He had been in a battle mood though, so the first words out of his mouth were "Is it over?"

Gaomon, who happened to be just getting over the Prison Fist himself, mumbled "Yeah. We won." The dog digimon was rubbing his shoulder. Typically a bad sign, you weren't supposed to feel pain in a specific area after de-digivolving.

"Barely. Arkadimon digivolved shortly before my lightning bolt struck them; if it had struck any later I wouldn't have been able to hold him off." Wisemon added. He, like the other four who hadn't been frozen when the lightning struck, was rubbing his eyes with one hand while massaging his ears with the other.

"You guys got off lucky. Labramon is still having trouble hearing, and it's been over ten minutes." Felicia said.

"Huh?" Labramon asked, proving Felicia's point.

"Great," Leormon said, "We have six people who're still stiff from being frozen, and five who may as well be deaf and blind for the time being."

"Didn't catch that last bit." Wayne said.

"Exactly." Leormon replied. And so it was that Wisemon and the Digidestined sat there on top of the Temple of Adminmon for yet another hour before any of them felt up to traveling.

_18:12DST/Unnamed jungle between Wendigo Plains and Sand Beach/In flight over the treetops_

When everyone was up for traveling, it turned out that Wisemon was still capable of using his Eight Balls of Lust attack eleven times to carry them all out over the jungle and to Sand Beach.

As they flew, the Digidestined decided to play some Q and A with Wisemon.

"So, uh, you mentioned earlier that you 'popped into existence'." Kyle began.

"Unlike most digimon, I was not born from a digiegg, nor did I progress to this level. Instead, I simply appeared atop the temple there one day at this level."

"And you just knew stuff immediately?" Akira asked.

"Well, some things. Other things came in time. I would be reading a prophecy and suddenly come across something I didn't know about, and then I'd wonder what it was for a few minutes and then I'd just know the information as if I'd remembered something."

"Most Wisemon don't typically come into their wisdom that way." Lunamon said.

"No, they typically don't." Wisemon paused for a second. He seemed to be remembering something. As he did so, his hand pixilated briefly. No one noticed it, and he soon added, "Typically Wisemon are wise before they're Wisemon, aren't they?"

"Yes." Labramon replied slowly. Silence followed for a while before Labramon asked, "You said you knew of the Digidestined from the moment you appeared. What exactly did you know?"

"There's six humans who were called to the digital world shortly after meeting digimon partners in the real world. The partners are bonded to each other in inexplicable ways, or at least ways that are inexplicable to those without a profound understanding of the physics behind it, and one of the humans arrived either one day or almost four years before the other five. The memory isn't clear on which one for some reason, which is odd considering the extreme time difference between the two options."

"Anything else?" Wayne asked.

"Well, they've all met Shiguya, and they're supposed to eventually defeat Hadesdramon."

"And that wasn't from a prophecy?"

"That was the reason they were called to the digital world by-"Wisemon cut off here as if he had been about to say something and was suddenly incapable of saying it. "By whomever it was that called them here." He eventually finished.

"And you know of Shiguya?" Felicia asked.

"He lives just three mythic spires away from here. He used to visit me sometimes." Wisemon said.

"And, out of curiosity, why are you coming with us?"

"Going to visit Shiguya. Finished deciphering most of the prophecies, nothing better to do." After this there was silence for a while. Not much else to ask. And then, suddenly....

"Blasphemers!" The shout came from under the canopy, and it sounded as if whoever said it had been shouting it for a while. Everyone turned around to see a Tapirmon floating up through the canopy.

"What?" Wayne asked.

"Blasphemers! Trespassing in the most holy of temples!" The Tapir shouted.

"I'll deal with it." Lunamon said to the others shortly before digivolving to Lekismon. "Moon Night Kick!" Lekismon jumped out of the steel balls that had been flying her above the canopy and did a flip in the air before kicking the Tapirmon far into the jungle. The balls she had been riding on caught her as she de-digivolved into Lunamon again.

And so your author just added a couple hundred words to this chapter without accomplishing anything other than showing how kickass Lekismon is.

Later....

_19:32DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mythic Spire #5_

Once they got to the beach, they landed and Wisemon's spheres disappeared. It seemed relatively quiet for having a black spire. Wisemon seemed to be rather impatient. "I'll go on. You guys should be able to handle things without me for a while, right?" He asked

"Yeah, we'll be fine." Wayne said as he leaned against the spire. Also leaning on the spire with him were Jeff, Kyle, and Akira. The three nodded.

Wisemon nodded as well. "OK. See you all soon." With that, the Ultimate digimon walked off in what they assumed was the direction of the next spire. And so the night progressed. Eventually driftwood was gathered and lit for a bonfire using Coronamon's Corona Flame attack. The digidestined gathered around the fire in wait.

When they first heard the wolf howling, they dismissed it as being rather far off.

_23:14DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mythic Spire #5_

Felicia woke with a start when the wolf howled again. This was the fourth time so far, and once again it sounded closer. She shivered a bit before muttering "This is eerily similar to Wendigo Plains." A few minutes later, she fell asleep again.

_4:32DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Border/Mystic Spire #5_

The wolf hadn't howled since Felicia mentioned how similar it was to Wendigo Plains, but now she woke up to the sound of Akira screaming in pain as she was bombarded with thousands of tiny blades. Felicia looked around groggily to see everyone else looking around in confusion. Soon afterward Akira collapsed back on the sand, severely weakened, only for Lunamon to be hit and de-digivolved to Moonmon.

By this time everyone was now wide awake and staring around for the source of the danger. It wasn't long before Kyle was hit, and then Leormon, Jeff, and Gaomon. Those who were hit all collapsed on the sand, unable to get up.

Felicia glanced at Labramon, Wayne, and Coronamon."This doesn't look too good." She said before instinct told her to jump to the left. She made it out of the way just as another blast of blades shot out from where her shadow had just been. The blast came from what appeared to be another blob of shadow, with nothing to cast it. "What is that?" She asked, pointing at the blob before noting it was rushing back into her shadow. She dodged away again just in time to avoid yet another blast of blades.

"I wish I knew." Wayne replied, only for the blob to head into his shadow and strike him down. Coronamon followed soon afterwards.

"Shit."

_4:34DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's room_

Dan woke up in pain all over, but more specifically with a massive headache. "Fucking Wisemon. How the hell did I get back?"

"You were deleted, Hadesdramon brought your data into a digiegg and brought it back here. It only hatched a few hours ago." The voice was unmistakeably BlackAgumon's, and there seemed to be some restrained laughter involved.

"Sure. That sounds wonderful. Explains the pain." Dan sat up regardless of the pain and saw BlackAgumon standing in front of the mirror, most definitely restraining some laughter. Oddly enough, he could see none of his own reflection. "What are you laughing at?"

BlackAgumon merely stopped restraining the laughter and stepped out of the way of the mirror. Dan gazed into it, blinking a few times before it hit him. When it did, his voice contorted into a hilariously angry mask. Hilarious, because, well, we'll let Dan explain.

"I'M A FUCKING CHIBI?!"

**A/N:** Blargle. This story is SO much harder to write than its sequel. And it disappoints me how short the chapters get. Still, for some reason writing from Dan's point of view is just so much fun. Pity I can't use him next chapter, and possibly the one after that. On a side note, the chapter title is absolute crap, but I can't be assed to make another one, and the chapter itself is shorter than I'd like, probably because I split the Mystic Spire #5 battle.

**Disclaimer: **Me? Owning Digimon? SOMEONE needs to lay off the crack….

**Chapter Thirteen: Dawn/Anger**

_4:42DST/Sand Beach/Jungle Spire/Mystic Spire #5_

Felicia gasped for air as once again she rolled out of the way of the series of blades flung from her shadow at her. For the past ten minutes, she'd been switching between contemplating what digimon could do such a thing, and dodging the blades. After this last attack, though, she found she had still been hit. There was a cut on her shoulder. Now, normally this would be where muttered a curse of some sort and got very angry. Instead, Felicia succumbed to the oddest thing she could've done at the time: she started thinking in French.

In order to fully understand how this could happen, one needs to realize that Felicia enjoyed learning languages, and having learned Spanish as a child, took French 1 and 2 in Middle School, and in her sophomore year of high school was now taking French 4 AP. Thinking in French was then of course quite easy for her. So, back to the present….

Felicia's first thought in French right now was '_Je saigne_,' meaning 'I'm bleeding'. This struck a chord in Felicia's knowledge of digimon. How? The word for blood in French was _sang_. There was a digimon that could go into its enemy's shadow and hurl blades at it called Sangloupmon. Having made the connection, Felicia muttered "_Naturellement!_" It all made sense now. She quickly dove out of the way of another one of Sangloupmon's blade attacks and then reached into her shadow before pulling out the blood wolf digimon. Growing Labramon's muzzle, she growled "Retribark!" A French textbook flew out of nowhere and smacked the Sangloupmon on the head as it was thrown back by the soundwaves.

"Sticker Blade!" The blood wolf cried in retaliation, only for Felicia to block the attack with the French book. It was around this time that the Digital World decided the sun should start rising, and a single ray of sunlight came up just level with the horizon. Felicia hurled the textbook to the side and began advancing on Sangloupmon, her digivice aglow. She felt somehow empowered by the sunlight just barely cresting the horizon now.

"Felicia Biovolve to: Felicia Seasarmon Mode!" She shouted, noting in the back of her mind that Labramon digivolved to Seasarmon as she biovolved. She could tell the Sangloupmon was scared when it hurled more blades at her. She smirked and yelled "Tiida Iya!" just in time for a shield made out of sunlight to appear and halt the blades. Seasarmon approached from behind and muttered "Sekkantou," launching a beam of concentrated sunlight at the Sangloupmon. Although the beam was relatively small, likely an effect of there being so little sunlight right now, Sangloupmon was a digimon highly affiliated with night. Even that little beam was enough to instantly delete the Sangloupmon as the sun continued to rise. Felicia just raised a golden eyebrow and sat down on the sand to watch the mystic spire turn white, the blinding light from the transformation reflecting off of the gold bracelets she found on her wrists in this form. As Seasarmon sat down next to her, she put her hands behind her and leaned back. It had been a long night, and she hoped there wouldn't be too much walking today.

After the spire finished putting on its show of turning white, she soon found herself falling asleep using the French book as a pillow.

_5:21DST/The Complex/Dan and Arkadimon's Room_

Dan was not amused. BlackAgumon had shut the door behind him when he left, and as a chibi, Dan could not reach the doorknob. To make matters worse, he found he couldn't make digital portals anymore, and he needed to go ask Hadesdramon what was happening. He was left with only one choice: jumping to try and reach the door knob. The sight seemed to amuse Arkadimon, who sat on the bad making an odd wheezing sound that Dan just knew was laughter.

Of course, it was a hilarious sight. Although Dan was jumping quite high for a chibi (which is indeed a lot higher than one might think), the doorknob remained just out of reach. Cursing his luck, he glanced around the room for something to aid him in getting the door open. Normally Arkadimon's In-Training form seemed to look like merely an overlarge insect, but right now it looked like a step stool. With a quick movement, Dan had pulled Arkadimon to where he had been previously jumping, hopped onto his partner, and from there managed to jump just high enough to grasp the doorknob with both hands. "Sorry about that!" He squeaked as he struggled to pull the door open.

After a few seconds of struggling, he had the door open enough to finish pulling it open from the floor. He hopped down, pushed it open just enough so he and Arkadimon could get through, and then stormed off through the hallways of The Complex looking for the R and D lab. The looks he received from the various digimon who served Hadesdramon as he walked down the halls angered him, and he glared at anyone who dared to laugh. Needless to say, glaring only made it worse.

As he strode through the automatic sliding doors of the lab, he forced himself to calm down. He made his way over to the virus Elecmon who had invented the device that gave him the ability to summon the portals. "I can't summon portals. I thought you said it would survive deletion."

"It did. It just got overloaded by a large current of electricity. Another shock should fix it, but I'll need to know what you got hit with." The purple and gold pain in the butt was smart enough to not mention Dan being a chibi.

"Lightning. A Wisemon's prediction, if I had to guess."

"Interesting…" The Elecmon turned to the computer next to him which was currently displaying a readout of the status of Dan's device. It was utter gibberish to Dan, but the Elecmon seemed to understand it. After a few seconds of studying the data, the Elecmon turned to Dan. "You'll feel a little pain, but it'll be like getting hit by a rookie's attack as a champion. Assassin's Bolt." A small blade of electricity jumped from the Elecmon to just behind Dan's ear.

"Ouch." Dan said before feeling the sudden reconnection of the device. "Digital Portal Open. Pre-set Destination: Hadesdramon's Lair." In a process that suddenly took longer than usual, Dan and Arkadimon were swept over by a beam that disassembled them into data that was then sucked through the portal and reassembled on the other side.

_6:14DST/Hadesdramon's Lair_

When Dan came out the other side of the portal, he was disappointed to find that he was still not back to normal. He stormed down the hallway, followed closely by Arkadimon, until he came to the actual lair. He approached the edge of the precipice the struck out over the volcanic crater Hadesdramon called home with the usual fearful respect, but this time there was an tinge of anger about it. "My lord." He said.

There was a rumbling from below and then suddenly a pair of red glowing eyes appeared in the shadows below. As always, a new wave of fear washed over Dan at the sight of the eyes. It was never the eyes themselves that did it, but always the thought of what the eyes were a part of. He had only actually seen Hadesdramon once, but the mega level dragon digimon was the sort of thing that gave little kids nightmares if you even mentioned his name after they'd seen him.

"Why do you wake me?" Hadesdramon rumbled.

"Surely you see my current form." Dan replied, gradually regaining his confidence and anger. "What happened? I need to know what has happened to me. Weakness is not something I will tolerate in myself."

"Ah, yes. Dan. I was expecting you to come to me, but not so soon. You show strength greater than I expected. Quite simply, you were deleted. This is a side-effect, unforeseen, but easily explainable. Surely it follows that if you can take on a Champion form, just as Arkadimon can, you can also take on an In-Training form, an Ultimate form, and even a Mega form if Arkadimon ever reached that level."

"So being deleted put me into this form?"

"Yes. And you get out of it the same way Arkadimon would get out of his In-Training form, I assume. The buildup of power." Dan could've sworn Hadesdramon was smirking there. The tone made it so obvious.

"And you can accelerate that, correct? I cannot remain like this."

Now Hadesdramon chuckled. "Accelerate is not a strong enough word. Darkworld Breath." Up from the crater following these last words came a cloud of dark smoke. It hovered briefly around Dan and Arkadimon, obscuring them. And then it began to thin, as though absorbed by the two. When it could be seen through again, Dan and Arkadimon stood there, Dan returned to normal and Arkadimon at his Champion level now. Although neither one actually looked different, something about the way they stood screamed evil.

Hadesdramon's last words echoed around the chamber: "There is someone by the name of Shiguya who assists the other humans. Find and destroy him."

**A/N:** Funny, the character I originally intended to focus on in the story turns out to be one of the hardest for me to write. Mleh. Anyone who's read Digital Demons will recognize the significance of Wayne being the last one to get to Champion here if they think about it for a while.

One of these days I may have to see if it's worthwhile to do a drinking game where you take a shot every time I use an ellipse in a story.

**Disclaimer:** Disclaimer, disclaimer, I do not own Digimon!

**Chapter Fourteen: The Flaming Lion**

_10:32DST/Digital Ocean/Between Mythic Spires #5 and #6/Rowboat_

"Stroke!" Wayne called again as everyone rowed the boat closer to the small island ahead. Everyone, that is, except for him and Coronamon. Nothing like an affiliation with fire to keep you away from the edges of the boat. Given the circumstances, no one seemed to mind too much. After all, they figured, Wayne and Coronamon were the only ones who hadn't reached Champion yet; this next spire was bound to be their fight. "Stroke!" He called once more, and the boat inched closer to the island. At this rate, they'd get to shore in about an hour. _Still, it's better than swimming,_ he thought, thankful once more that they had found the boat beached on a sandbar from which they could just make out the island. He really hadn't been up for a swim after last night's attack. Sure, the blades were gone and the wounds had healed and all the digimon were back to Rookie again, but there was still an ache where he'd been hit. "Stroke!" He called, resigned to another hour of doing so.

_11:43DST/Island on which Mythic Spire #6 is located/Shore_

The group stumbled onto shore now, their arms tired and their tempers high. Kyle had hit Wayne over the head with his oar roughly ten yards from shore, and thus the boat had capsized. Thus it had fallen to him to drag the boat ashore while everyone else got there first. They were now lying down to dry off with the sun as Kyle heaved the boat up. "Lazy idiot." He muttered as he walked past Wayne to collapse on the sand a little further inland.

"I HEARD THAT!" Wayne yelled, still rubbing the bump on his head. Although he hadn't been doing any of the rowing (hence everyone else's high tempers), he was now rather out of it from being hit on the head and then suddenly thrown into the water. He stood up a little shakily and gave silent thanks that Kyle had been exhausted when he'd hit him. Despite the exhaustion, Kyle had managed to hit Wayne rather hard.

Shaking his head to relieve the pain, he glanced around and began to take in his surroundings. The island looked like it had burned in a wildfire recently, and the general effect was one of making it seem like a forest a horror movie might take place in at night. Then again, there was evidence on the ground that it was more of a jungle than a forest. Burnt vines and leaves too big to belong anywhere but a jungle littered the ground.

"Well, at least Coronamon won't accidentally set fire to it." He muttered, walking slowly towards the burnt jungle. He glanced back to see Coronamon following him just far enough behind to have not heard the muttering. Apparently he wasn't the only one who wanted to explore the island while everyone else rested.

The pair walked in silence for a while, with only the noise of the burnt plant matter crunching under their feet to accompany them. It wasn't long before they lost sight of the beach and found themselves on what appeared to be a path of some sort. Judging from the state of the various leaves and such, it was used rather frequently, although by what they couldn't tell. They decided without speaking that it was best not to use the path.

After a while they found another path. The crossed over it again, only to see another path just a few feet further away heading in a slightly different direction. They crossed this one too, and saw another path. After a few more it became apparent the paths were all converging on one central point.

"Worth investigating? It could lead to the spire," Asked Coronamon.

"Sure, I guess. But let's be careful," Wayne replied.

And so the pair turned onto the next path and began following it to the point of convergence. In a few moments, they found themselves in a clearing. The only thing there was a burnt tree that stood taller than the rest and seemed to have lost its branches. The tree was precisely in the middle of the clearing. Nothing too unusual, though. Wayne and Coronamon shrugged, perhaps a little disappointed, and sat down to rest a bit anyway.

_13:48DST/Island on which Mythic Spire #6 is located/Burnt Jungle_

Kyle sighed as he searched through the burnt jungle looking for Wayne. In typical group fashion, it was decided that Kyle be sent to go find Wayne and Coronamon and tell them that lunch was ready. Of course, he was sure he was also expected to apologize for hitting Wayne. Not that he would. Wayne had deserved that.

Of course, in order to go find Wayne and not apologize to him, Kyle first had to figure out where he was. He'd gotten lost within a few minutes of venturing into the jungle. So it was around now that he first came upon a path. He noticed it'd been used recently. He DIDN'T notice that it had been used by something with giant bird feet. So he decided to follow it thinking that Wayne and Coronamon had used it recently and chances were that they would be at one end or another of it. Of course, he also didn't notice that the digimon that had recently used the trail was staring at him from the cover of some burnt ferns. Pity the fool.

"Little Pecker!" And with that, a small explosive ball of feathers and metal was launched at Kyle. The poor guy barely had enough time to feel the pain of the explosion and turn in the direction of the sound before the follow-up attack. "Nose Mattock!" And Kyle fell to the ground, unconscious.

_13:50DST/Island on which Mythic Spire #6 is located/Burnt Jungle/Center_

Wayne woke up with a start when he heard the explosion. He looked around for a moment to see Coronamon also just waking up, and then he heard the shout of "Nose Mattock!" The two locked eyes, and then they ran off in the direction of the sound. There was a path heading fairly straight towards the sound, and so they were able to run down it fairly fast. The sight that greeted them angered Wayne.

It was a Kiwimon about to crush Kyle under its foot. Wayne burst into flames without even trying to use Petit Prominence. And then he ran at it, screaming "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" Within moments, he had tackled the Kiwimon to the ground and dodged out of the way as Coronamon sent a flurry of fireballs at it. He soon had to dodge out of the way again as the Kiwimon got up and used the momentum to try and head butt him. When he dodged, however, he heard Coronamon cry out in pain, shortly followed by an explosion.

"Coronamon!" He shouted, feeling an echo of the pain himself. He turned and glared at the Kiwimon with a look that could burn through steel. "Oh, you're gonna pay for that." Suddenly his Digivice was in his hand. Sensing something unpleasant to come, perhaps, the Kiwimon turned and ran back towards the center of the jungle. Not that it did it much good, because soon afterward Wayne literally roared "Wayne Biovolve to: Wayne Firamon Mode!" Now running on hands and feet, Wayne followed the Kiwimon at top speed, metal bands like the ones on Coronamon's wrists forming on his forehead, wrists, and ankles. "Flame Dive!" Came the next roar as Wayne flew up into the air, propelled by a jump and the bands working as jet engines. He caught fire, and then dove down and tackled the Kiwimon to the ground. The giant bird disappeared in a cloud of data as it was deleted.

When Wayne looked up, he saw the 'tree' in the center of the jungle was now shining and slowly turning white. As it did so, the jungle started to return to an unburnt state before his very eyes. "So it was the spire afterall…." He muttered, turning back and walking back down the path to find Kyle and Coronamon.

_14:34DST/Island on which Mythic Spire #6 is located/Shore_

Leormon had just finished convincing the rest of the Digidestined he thought Kyle was in danger (probably severely injured by this point, but ignoring that…) when it started happening. The burnt trees and ferns and such at the edge of the jungle suddenly started looking not so burnt anymore and began regrowing leaves at an unbelievable rate. Granted, this was the Digital World, so such phenomena could easily be explained by a major power shift in the area, but Leormon saw no cause for such a power shift. He wasn't the only one in the group who thought so, as the human members of the group began gasping in awe, while most of the Digimon muttered something along the lines of "Huh?"

A few moments later, Leormon collapsed under a heavy weight. Upon closer examination, he discovered it was the unconscious Kyle, faint burn marks on his shirt but otherwise apparently all right now. Everyone immediately began looking around for the source of falling Digidestined, but the most anyone caught was a glimpse of flaming shoe disappearing into the regrown canopy of the jungle.

"OK, so he's not in danger anymore…." Leormon said as he pulled himself out from under his partner.

"Yeah, uh…." Aki began, only to be interrupted midthought by a streak of fire flying past her, which then turned around, slowing down, before landing in the middle of the group. Standing there, holding up a shell-shocked looking Coronamon, was Wayne, complete with the fire bands indicating Champion level. He was met with blank stares and open mouths.

"What?" He asked, as if it was perfectly normal for him to fly in as a streak of fire. One day it would be, but for now, it wasn't. Luckily for him, he wasn't going to have to explain this right away. Or maybe not.

"OW!" He yelled as he was suddenly smacked upside the head by Jeff, right where Kyle had hit him not four hours earlier. "What was that for?"

"You missed the lunch I made for everyone." Jeff replied calmly. Insert Wayne face-faulting.


End file.
